I haven’t written much this year but Karen and I hit our goal of making 12 episodes of Feminist Coffee Hour and we plan to continue next year. My family is well – my son is growing and amazing me every day. Adam is working on a new book you might like.

I organized a Lights for Liberty vigil in July which was probably my political action highlight of the year. I also raised money for abortion funds as I will every year hopefully until the Hyde Amendment is gone.

Veep and Crazy Ex Girlfriend ended this year and they’re really two of the greatest shows of all time so check them out if you haven’t.

I also LOVED the Good Omens miniseries and it will make you so happy if you need a lift. The book is great too. (RIP Terry Pratchett)

We end the year with a panel on the Democratic primary field. Join Elizabeth, Karen, Working Families Party Organizer Rebecca Lynch and Salon columnist Amanda Marcotte for a discussion of the candidates, the debates and what you need to know before you vote.

Remember that story a few months ago about how men don’t recycle because they’re afraid people will think they are gay? We found the researcher and…that’s not exactly what she found. Join us for a discussion of gender, pro environmental behaviors and what the evidence actually suggests.

I don’t have much to say about movies or music (though I loved The Shape of Water, and Blackkklansman) or tv (two of my favorites – Portlandia and The X-Files ended this year and I also watched a lot of baking shows and 90’s sci-fi.) But here’s some recommendations for some articles, podcasts and books:

We interviewed Professor Stephen Carter and his daughter Leah Carter to talk about their new book, Invisible: The Forgotten Story of the Black Woman Lawyer Who Took Down America’s Most Powerful Mobster. The book is about Eunice Carter, Professor Carter’s grandmother.

]]>http://www.politicalflavors.com/2018/09/13/feminist-coffee-hour-episode-31-nonbinary-101-with-alex-kapitan/feed/0Feminist Coffee Hour Episode 30: On the Ground for the 2018 Midterms in Wisconsin with Rebecca Lynchhttp://www.politicalflavors.com/2018/08/16/feminist-coffee-hour-episode-30-on-the-ground-for-the-2018-midterms-in-wisconsin-with-rebecca-lynch/
http://www.politicalflavors.com/2018/08/16/feminist-coffee-hour-episode-30-on-the-ground-for-the-2018-midterms-in-wisconsin-with-rebecca-lynch/#respondThu, 16 Aug 2018 10:00:11 +0000http://www.politicalflavors.com/?p=4577On the Ground for the 2018 Midterms in Wisconsin with Rebecca Lynch

Rebecca Lynch returns to our podcast. She spoke to us from Wisconsin where she’s working with the Working Families Party to turn Wisconsin blue. We talked about Wisconsin and what’s going on with the midterm elections coming up this November nationwide.

We recorded this interview at the end of January, before Daniel Mallory Ortberg had publicly come out. Some of the pronouns in this episode may be incorrect. We’ve since talked to him, offered congratulations and made sure he’s still ok with us publishing this interview. We are so happy that he was so generous with their time to be our guest for this episode.

We interviewed Daniel Mallory Ortberg to talk about his new book, “The Merry Spinster.” We also discussed American Vandal, gender identity, and why everyone thinks they are the reasonable person.

In time for Valentine’s Day and the release of Fifty Shades Freed, we interviewed psychologist Dr. Sarah Fraser about her dissertation “Taking The DSM out of BDSM: Sexuality, Personality, and Stereotypes of Psychopathology.” We talk about stereotypes, stigmas and popular representations of BDSM in popular culture and psychology.

On the occasion of the first anniversary of the Trump inauguration, everything you need to know about “The Goldwater Rule.” Plus a review of “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump” and a discussion of the 25th Amendment.

]]>http://www.politicalflavors.com/2018/01/18/feminist-coffee-hour-episode-23-the-goldwater-rule/feed/02017 Link Rounduphttp://www.politicalflavors.com/2017/12/31/2017-link-roundup/
http://www.politicalflavors.com/2017/12/31/2017-link-roundup/#respondSun, 31 Dec 2017 11:00:46 +0000http://www.politicalflavors.com/?p=4488Like last year, I am not optimistic about the future of the United States. However, I’d still like to share these links with you.

Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook by Mark Bray This book fills in a lot of history I never got in school. They don’t tell you socialists and communists and anarchists have been fighting Nazis in the streets for decades in Europe. Because then they’d have to admit that sometimes communists are the good guys

]]>http://www.politicalflavors.com/2017/11/09/feminist-coffee-hour-episode-21-pregnancy-discrimination/feed/0Feminist Coffee Hour Episode 20: Self Care In The Age of Trumphttp://www.politicalflavors.com/2017/10/12/feminist-coffee-hour-episode-20-self-care-in-the-age-of-trump/
http://www.politicalflavors.com/2017/10/12/feminist-coffee-hour-episode-20-self-care-in-the-age-of-trump/#respondThu, 12 Oct 2017 10:00:08 +0000http://www.politicalflavors.com/?p=4454Self Care In The Age Of Trump

I want to talk now about a sketch in which Tina Fey encourages people to eat cake instead of protesting Nazis.

Heather Heyer is dead but cake is delicious.

Saturday Night Live is what Jon Stewart insists he is: entertainment, not political commentary. However, many people, including people I respect and love look to it for analysis and catharsis. (My alternative suggestion – The Majority Report with Sam Seder. It’s funny but also provides in depth information.) If you like SNL because it’s funny, great! But if you watch it for political commentary, you need to know this: Lorne Michaels doesn’t want the show to be liberal (or conservative). He wants it to appeal to all Americans, and he’s aiming for the middle. He said so during an interview with Marc Maron in 2015.

So with that in mind, let’s think about how this cake sketch meets that standard. On one hand liberals can see themselves in Tina Fey, angry, righteous, feeling helpless. And conservatives can laugh at the paranoid liberal chick getting fat because she doesn’t like that someone challenged her PC notions. And the “middle” if there is one, can feel good about doing nothing. Because that’s what Tina Fey is saying here, she’s affirming complacency and inaction, as long as there’s some guilt mixed in, it’s ok. She’s telling people to channel their outrage into self indulgence. As entertainment, it’s funny. But as praxis, it’s terrible. Now, I’m all for self care. So here’s what I propose instead:

We interviewed Lindsay Beyerstein about her upcoming documentary “Care in Chaos” which is the story of two abortion clinics in red states and how their relationships with police impact access to reproductive healthcare.

]]>http://www.politicalflavors.com/2017/05/11/feminist-coffee-hour-episode-16-voices-of-the-resistance/feed/0Feminist Coffee Hour Is Now On Patreonhttp://www.politicalflavors.com/2017/05/03/feminist-coffee-hour-is-now-on-patreon/
http://www.politicalflavors.com/2017/05/03/feminist-coffee-hour-is-now-on-patreon/#respondWed, 03 May 2017 19:31:08 +0000http://www.politicalflavors.com/?p=4377You might be wondering, what ever happened to the Feminist Coffee Hour Podcast? Well, it hasn’t gone away. In fact we have three episodes in post production, and plans to record many more. However life has gotten hectic – me with a new baby and Karen’s career is getting exciting. We just don’t have the time we used to. But we really want to keep making this show. So we decided to hire an editor to help us with the podcast. She’s doing great work and we can afford to pay her. We see it as the cost of participating in a project we love. But we always said if things ever started to cost over a certain amount, we’d put more effort into monetization. So we made a Patreon. If you want to support our show, here’s where you can do it. The Feminist Coffee Hour Podcast on Patreon.
]]>http://www.politicalflavors.com/2017/05/03/feminist-coffee-hour-is-now-on-patreon/feed/0Conservatives are the OLD Punk Rockhttp://www.politicalflavors.com/2017/02/27/conservatives-are-the-old-punk-rock/
http://www.politicalflavors.com/2017/02/27/conservatives-are-the-old-punk-rock/#respondMon, 27 Feb 2017 11:00:57 +0000http://www.politicalflavors.com/?p=4359

I balk when I see tweets about conservatives being the new punk rock just because people vehemently hate Milo Yiannopoulos for being a *fashionable* blowhard. This is because I associate punk with my rebellion against fascistic tendencies and I associate the alt right with shitty old nazis who just so happen not to carry the SES association with rednecks. But today, my “shuffle all” played 7 Seconds and I realized how much I cling to the good and put aside the bad in my memories of the punk rock I loved in my youth. As a tween and teen, I clung to bands like 7 Seconds because they had the edge and the energy I loved about punk, but they also created space for me. With feminist 101 songs like “Not Just Boys Fun” and lines like “fuck big business, church and war/that’s not what we’re fighting for” in “Definite Choice,” I had music to get me fired up for the political work and to comfort me in times when I felt like maybe I was the crazy one and I should just conform. The flip side of that realization of how fucking great 7 Seconds was, is that there was SO MUCH that was garbage.

I remember the first time I listened to Nevermind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols and thought Bodies was an incomprehensible story of abortion stigma. Is the problem that she was poor? “A case of insanity”? That she was a “no-one who killed her baby”? Was the transgression supposed in the graphic gorey descriptions? If so, then the purity ring wearing indoctrinated tweens outside clinics who carry signs bearing gorey images of god knows what are as punk rock as the Pistols. I did not find it to be progressive or transgressive, and I didn’t have the language or discourse of the problematic fav so I just had to live with my cognitive dissonance and continue to call punk progressive while knowing it could be weirdly conservative. Bodies is downright milquetoast compared to what I heard as I got into hardcore and oi!

I remember smiling while my at-the-time boyfriend and his bestie listened to “Politically Incorrect” by Combat 84 not quite ironically enough to justify their smirks at “Equal opportunity?! What about my fucking opportunities?!” (also lol, this line basically sums up the entire argument of conservative transgression). Yes, for every kid with a SHARP patch, there was a kid with an 88 patch (or the little patch with a no symbol over the SHARP logo because I guess graphic design for nazis died in the 40s); for every Kathleen Hanna there was a Fat Mike; for every “Jesus was a Communist,” there’s a really bizarrely high number of white dudes trying to convince you that Screwdriver is just really great punk music if you can put aside the white power shit. As a kid I had a lot of trouble navigating whether or not some kid I was meeting was gonna say some outrageously dehumanizing shit about Jews without noticing (or maybe intentionally because they did notice) that I’m Jewish.

At that time, I had to dig to find Team Dresch or Bitch and Animal (ok, does anti-folk count as punk? I don’t know, don’t @ me) to express that queer anger I had inside me, an anger that was definitely not acceptable to a lot of the traditional-gender-role-loving hardcore scene. Punk rock and queercore is now a huge part, if not the dominating genre, of punk. Thanks in part to band like MEN and Gravy Train!!!, we have bands like PWR BTTM being featured in the New York Times. The new punk rock is a glittering queermo paradise, not some fucking punch bait dude with a frog pin talking about how he’s *technically* not a member of the KKK.

]]>http://www.politicalflavors.com/2017/02/27/conservatives-are-the-old-punk-rock/feed/0What Do I Say When I Call My Representative? January 23, 2017 editionhttp://www.politicalflavors.com/2017/01/23/what-do-i-say-when-i-call-my-representative-january-23-2017-edition/
http://www.politicalflavors.com/2017/01/23/what-do-i-say-when-i-call-my-representative-january-23-2017-edition/#respondMon, 23 Jan 2017 20:56:53 +0000http://www.politicalflavors.com/?p=4340In the past two days, two people have asked me, “But Elizabeth, after I call my Congressperson, what do I say?

I’m glad more people are interested in contacting their representatives and this seems like such a responsibility. I don’t really want to tell people what to say – it seems so personal to me. But since people have been asking me, here’s a few suggestions. Notice, this post is dated, in case I write more posts like these in the future.

First, know who you are calling. If you live in one of the 50 states, you have one Congressional Representative and two Senators in Washington DC. You also have one state assembly member and one state senator representing you to your state government. [Unless you live in Nebraska, then you just have one legislator]. You have a governor. There’s probably also people who represent you at the local level. In New York City, there’s my city councilman and the Mayor. When I lived on Long Island, I had village trustees, a village mayor, a town councilman, a town supervisor, a county legislator and a county executive. Local government varies wildly but most have websites where you can find out who represents you – and since many localities in the United States have local elections in odd years – the people who will be knocking on your door this summer and fall are the ones who will represent you the closest to where you live.

Second, pick a specific issue that the person you are calling has direct influence over. Learn about the issue and find out who votes on what before you call. For example, your Senator can’t help you with a pothole (thus why you should learn the nitty gritty of your local government). And your congressperson doesn’t vote on Supreme Court nominees (only Senators do).

When you call, make it short and sweet:

Hello, my name is __________, and I live in (town) (zip code). I’m calling to ask (the Congressman/Senator/Assemblywoman/Councilman) to vote (Yes/No) on __________. Thank you

But, you may ask, what goes in that last blank? I hesitate so much to do this because I really think people should decide for themselves, but here’s my personal suggestions, and links which support my position. Pick one or two of these at a time. You can always call back the next day with more requests.

Remember to be polite. You might be angry, but you are speaking to a staffer whose job it is to talk to the public all day. It’s basic human decency to be nice to them.

After you call, tell people who you called and what you said and why. Use social media or just bring it up in conversation. You will encourage others to do the same. If you find out your representative is planning to vote how you asked them to, thank them, and tell your friends that too.

My son is still a baby by but I try to read to him every day. He doesn’t understand the words yet but he likes looking at the pictures and hearing my voice. In some ways I’m glad I don’t have to explain Donald Trump to him yet, and my heart goes out to parents who do. When I was a kid I liked topical books like “How My Parents Learned to Eat” and “The Lorax.” My Dad gave me a copy of Jack London’s “The Scab” when I was about ten. And I plan on continuing the tradition of including political books with my own son. Here’s some kids books covering themes that may come up in the net few years:

For Very Little OnesA is for Activist by Innosanto Nagara
An alphabet board book which covers the A-Z of activism from “Advocate Abolitionist Ally” to “Zapatista of course.” Some people may balk about introducing radical politics to young children. But I love this book. I will unapologetically share my Unitarian Universalist faith with my son, and he’ll be hearing a lot of these words at coffee hour after services, or while I’m playing “Democracy Now!” in the background of a quiet day at home. So why not read him this remarkable book of rhymes about activism?

For Your Budding FeministRad American Women A-Z by Kate Schatz and Miriam Klein Stahl
About a year before I had my son, I reviewed this book on Goodreads: “This book is amazing and I want to buy a copy for every child I know.” Children will enjoy learning about historical figures they’ve heard of and those they haven’t. Although it’s written for children, it does not hold back. It begins, “A is for Angela. Angela Davis was born in 1944 in Birmingham Alabama into a neighborhood known as ‘Dynamite Hill’ because a group of racist white men called the Ku Klux Klan often bombed the homes of black families who lived there.”

For The Elementary School Age PeacemakerThe Sandwich Swap by Queen Rania of Jordan
This is a simple story of two girls who are best friends, one white and one Arab, but who secretly think each other’s food is gross. You can probably guess what happens next. It’s a sweet story with charming pictures.

If Things Get Really BadThe Butter Battle Book by Dr. Seuss
Dr. Seuss wrote this during the Cold War, and it’s an unflinching look at the prospect of nuclear war through the eyes of a child. I read it when I was about 11 in 1994. By that time, both the Berlin Wall and the USSR were things of the past. For children who lived through times where the prospect of mutually assured destruction was very real, this book was much more relatable. It’s also a good tool to teach kids about allegory and how literature can simplify real world problems into stories we can talk about.

]]>http://www.politicalflavors.com/2017/01/20/what-to-read-to-your-kid-during-the-trump-administration/feed/02016 Link Rounduphttp://www.politicalflavors.com/2016/12/31/2016-link-roundup/
http://www.politicalflavors.com/2016/12/31/2016-link-roundup/#respondSat, 31 Dec 2016 23:58:44 +0000http://www.politicalflavors.com/?p=4315I’m still way too pessimistic about America’s descent into fascism to call this post the “Best of” but here’s some things I think you’d like if you missed them, with election stuff kept to a minimum.

You will remember the note from John and me a few days ago in which we emphasized that POLITICO journalists are representing the publication at all times and on all platforms, and must present themselves accordingly. We also emphasized that the power of POLITICO comes from our independent reporting and analysis. Gratuitous opinion has no place, anywhere, at any time – not on your Facebook feed, your Twitter feed or any place else. It has absolutely zero value for our readers and should have zero place in our work

Julia Ioffe’s tweet this afternoon about President-elect Trump – currently and understandably racing across social media – is a clear example of the opposite of what we were talking about.

Julia had previously announced she is taking her work to the Atlantic. We have accelerated the close of her POLITICO contributor contract, effective immediately.

We understand how absolutely infuriating it is to have incidents like this tarnish POLITICO and the great work being done across the company. We feel the same, and as such there will be little tolerance for this type of behavior.

Thanks to the vast majority of you who are providing positive examples of the responsible way to engage on social media.

Carrie and John

8.

It was a tasteless, offensive tweet that I regret and have deleted. I am truly and deeply sorry. It won't happen again.

WAS IT? WAS IT THOUGH? Was it tasteless and offensive to joke about Trump doing what he clearly wants to do? Is it more tasteless and offensive that Trump said those things in the first place or that Iofee wisecracked about them? Or is it only truly tasteless and offensive that she got fired for it while he gets to be President of the United States?

We are in for a hell of a ride people. Do not let yourself be gaslit. Facts still matter. History is real, it really happened, and it matters. Do not fall down the rabbit hole of letting Trump or his supporters or Politico tell you that reality isn’t real.

(Never thought I’d be one of those people signing posts this way, but) RESIST!

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Congresswoman Suzan DelBene (WA-01) introduced the No Religious Registry Act (H.R. 6382) to ensure individuals of all faiths are protected from the establishment of a national religious registry.

“President-elect Donald Trump is breaking his promise to be a President for all Americans by supporting the creation of a Muslim registry. This kind of xenophobic and hateful rhetoric has no place in our government,” DelBene said. “We cannot allow our country to disregard the civil liberties enshrined in the Constitution. My bill would prohibit the administration from violating the constitutional rights of Americans because everyone should be treated equally under our laws.”

DelBene’s bill would prohibit the Attorney General, Secretary of Homeland Security and any United States government official from establishing or utilizing a registry for the purposes of classifying individuals on the basis of religious affiliation. The legislation would cover U.S. nationals, U.S. visa applicants and aliens lawfully present in the United States.

]]>http://www.politicalflavors.com/2016/11/27/letter-writing-sunday-support-the-no-religious-registry-act-h-r-6382/feed/0Questions For The Anonymous Millennial Nurse Who Voted For Trumphttp://www.politicalflavors.com/2016/11/25/questions-for-the-anonymous-millenial-nurse-who-voted-for-trump/
http://www.politicalflavors.com/2016/11/25/questions-for-the-anonymous-millenial-nurse-who-voted-for-trump/#respondFri, 25 Nov 2016 11:00:30 +0000http://www.politicalflavors.com/?p=4288Let’s just assume this is real. I have some questions.

I’m also a women’s health nurse practitioner and I’ve cared for women of many different religions, races, ethnicities, and sexual orientations.

Do you agree that we should repeal the Affordable Care Act? How would this affect your patients?

Should abortion be illegal? If you do, how would that affect your patients?

The Affordable Care Act has resulted in many women getting IUDs. This may soon be over. Will this be good or bad for women’s health?

I don’t claim to speak for all urban white women who voted for Trump. But I’m sure I’m not alone in my astonishment at the allegations thrown around the social media echo chamber, accusing us of being racist, self-hating misogynists.

How do you think Donald Trump would respond if an employee of his made a substantiated report of being groped by a supervisor?

If you had a daughter and you noticed she was reading an article or watching a news story about Donald Trump admitting to barging in to the Miss Teen USA pageant dressing room to see the girls when they were naked, would you say anything to her about it?

Many of my left-leaning friends don’t see how other people could have valid rational reasons for opposing gay marriage, abortion, or open-border immigration policies, and still be good people. This is not tolerance

What are your valid rational reasons for opposing gay marriage?

I remember feeling I was doing my civic duty just by changing my Facebook profile picture to a Planned Parenthood emblem or the Pride Flag. I was supporting policies I believed were for the greater good—but was able to do this without making any personal sacrifice. I could pat myself on the back and march off to spread awareness, a crusader for social justice and humanism out to convert the infidels. I never asked myself whether the policies I promoted might make some people’s lives quite difficult.

Do you no longer support Planned Parenthood? If not, why?

What is wrong with Gay Pride flags?

How do Planned Parenthood and Gay Pride parades make some peoples lives quite difficult?

Do you think liberals only engage in the kinds of slacktivism you describe?

How would your argument change if you were talking to someone who put a lot more of their time, energy or even safety on the line for their beliefs?

It worries me when social justice warriors swirl their $15 glasses of wine in swanky urban restaurants and talk condescendingly about the backward hatred of rural, working America.

Did you know that Hillary Clinton won all voters making 50K or less and Donald Trump won voters making more than 50K?

Let people say what they will. Shame them publicly for cruel, offensive statements that are inconsistent with American values.

So, we can shame people who make cruel offensive statements that are inconsistent with American values, but we can’t shame people who voted for a man who made cruel and offensive statements that are inconsistent with American values?

Remember that personnel is policy and Donald Trump has appointed Myron Ebell, a climate change denier to oversee the EPA transition team. If he really cared about the environment, he would have appointed someone who actually has a good record on environmental issues. I can think of several Republicans who might be up for the task: Lindsey Graham, George Pataki, Christie Todd Whitman, Arnold Schwarzenegger, even Michael Bloomberg would be a good pick.

Over the weeks and months ahead, all kinds of random things are going to come out for Donald Trump’s mouth. Some of them might even sound really good. But before you breathe a sigh of relief, think about whatever he said for two seconds, and ask yourself “How does this measure up against what he has done?” This is so important because most media outlets will not fact check adequately. The original New York Times headline for this story was “Donald Trump says he has ‘An Open Mind’ on Climate Change Accord” and did not mention Ebell’s record of climate change denial, even though it’s incredibly relevant to his statement.

Six years ago, when my husband and I got married, I did not change my last name. I’ve written about the subject and discussed it on my podcast, twice. I didn’t see a good reason to change my name – it was a lot of work for no perceived benefit and historically a sexist custom. I did ask my husband if he would like for both of us to hyphenate but he declined, considering the effort that would take. So neither of us changed our names.

“But what about the children?!” people have asked me. I did consider giving our child a hyphenated or double barrelled last name. And if either my husband or I had done that I would have done so in a second. I am fond of saying that in Latin America many people have two last names and no one bats an eyelash. It’s a great custom which preserves both halves of a child’s heritage and I have no aesthetic qualms about it. Unfortunately in the United States many of the people I know with hyphenated last names face a bureaucratic nightmare that neither my husband nor I were willing to face. As we rejected the paperwork and red tape of having two last names in a country where this is seen as an odd choice, I hesitated to give my child a hassle I didn’t want for myself.

There was the option of giving my son my last name as his middle name, a custom I also like. But I preferred to give my son the middle name of my great uncle who was a wonderful man – charming, kind, generous and who maintained his sense of humor and his appetite for candy and scotch sours until the last days of his 95 years.

And so it seems I was giving my son only one last name. It could have been mine. But I chose to give him my husband’s last name alone for several reasons. I think parents who choose to give their children their mother’s last name are doing the hard work of defying a patriarchal custom. And as I will explain, it is work.

There is no logical reason why in the United States and other Western countries we give children only one last name and it’s always their fathers. The reason is our cultural taboo about paternity. We name children after their fathers as a way of signaling paternity. Not counting astronomically rare hospital mix-ups, as a fact of human biology, mothers are certain which children are theirs. And although we could easily replace last names with the paternity tests of modern medicine, they’re just not as salient as a last name.

Imagine two birth announcements:

Ms Mary Smith and Mr John Jones announce the birth of their son, Michael Jones, born October 1, at 12 noon, 8lb 20in

or

Ms Mary Smith and Mr John Jones announce the birth of their son, Michael Smith, born October 1, at 12 noon, 8lb 20in. A paternity test confirmed that John Jones is Michael’s father.

Doesn’t have quite the ring, eh?

The feminist argument that if a woman carries a child for ~40 weeks and then goes through childbirth and recovery she should name them after herself as a tribute to the work of pregnancy is a very good one.

"I wanted to have the same name as our kids." Great! You're the one carrying and birthing them, give them your last name.

But it ignores the cultural context in which we live and asks women to push the large red button labeled “PATERNITY TABOO.” People will quickly assume that a child named after their mother was named thusly because their father was absent at the time of birth, or that her current partner is not the biological father. They may even go on to assume that the child was the product of infidelity.

I was more than willing to take any ignorant or sexist comments for not changing my name when I got married. But I’m unwilling to take an action in the name of my feminist ideals which may cause people – however uninformed, or malicious – to reflect poorly on a child who cannot consent to my political action. And I do believe that under the current political climate, giving a child their mother’s last name is a political act. I would also prefer not to be put on the defensive about my fidelity to my husband for the rest of my life. I appreciate that some families are willing to take this on, but I do not want to take on the burden of signifying my resistance to patriarchy in this way. My choice is not feminist. Just angst savingly expedient.

]]>http://www.politicalflavors.com/2016/11/21/why-i-gave-my-son-my-husbands-last-name/feed/1Letter Writing Sunday – Stop Jeff Sessionshttp://www.politicalflavors.com/2016/11/20/letter-writing-sunday-stop-jeff-sessions/
http://www.politicalflavors.com/2016/11/20/letter-writing-sunday-stop-jeff-sessions/#respondSun, 20 Nov 2016 11:00:33 +0000http://www.politicalflavors.com/?p=4258You may have heard that the man who may become our next Attorney General was nominated to a Federal Judgeship before but was rejected because of his racist remarks. From Fortune:

This happened in 1986, when I was a toddler. When I heard that Jeff Sessions may become AG, I cringed because I remembered something much more recent. In 2009 when President Obama appointed Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, the questions Jeff Sessions asked her during her confirmation hearings were racist, absurd and illogical. He was obsessed with his own misinterpretation of her famous “wise Latina” quotation:

“I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life,””

And he battered her about it for a long time. Here’s just a sample of the back and forth:

SOTOMAYOR: I think if my speech is heard outside of the minute and a half that YouTube presents and its full context examined, that it is very clear that I was talking about the policy ramifications of precedent and never talking about appellate judges or courts making the policy that Congress makes.

SESSIONS: Judge, I would just say, I don’t think it’s that clear. I looked at that on tape several times, and I think a person could reasonably believe it meant more than that. But yesterday you spoke about your approach to rendering opinions and said, quote, “I seek to strengthen both the rule of law and faith in the impartiality of the justice system,” and I would agree. But you have previously said this: “I am willing to accept that we who judge must not deny differences resulting from experiences and heritage, but attempt, as the Supreme Court suggests, continuously to judge when those opinions, sympathies and prejudices are appropriate.” So first, I’d like to know, do you think there’s any circumstance in which a judge should allow their prejudices to impact their decision-making?

SOTOMAYOR: Never their prejudices. I was talking about the very important goal of the justice system is to ensure that the personal biases and prejudices of a judge do not influence the outcome of a case. What I was talking about was the obligation of judges to examine what they’re feeling as they’re adjudicating a case and to ensure that that’s not influencing the outcome. Life experiences have to influence you. We’re not robots to listen to evidence and don’t have feelings. We have to recognize those feelings and put them aside. That’s what my speech was saying…

SESSIONS: Well, Judge …

SOTOMAYOR: … because that’s our job.

SESSIONS: But the statement was, “I willingly accept that we who judge must not deny the differences resulting from experience and heritage, but continuously to judge when those opinions, sympathies and prejudices are appropriate.” That’s exactly opposite of what you’re saying, is it not?

SOTOMAYOR: I don’t believe so, Senator, because all I was saying is, because we have feelings and different experiences, we can be led to believe that our experiences are appropriate. We have to be open- minded to accept that they may not be, and that we have to judge always that we’re not letting those things determine the outcome. But there are situations in which some experiences are important in the process of judging, because the law asks us to use those experiences.

SESSIONS: Well, I understand that, but let me just follow up that you say in your statement that you want to do what you can to increase the faith and the impartiality of our system, but isn’t it true this statement suggests that you accept that there may be sympathies, prejudices and opinions that legitimately can influence a judge’s decision? And how can that further faith in the impartiality of the system?

SOTOMAYOR: I think the system is strengthened when judges don’t assume they’re impartial, but when judges test themselves to identify when their emotions are driving a result, or their experience are driving a result and the law is not.

SESSIONS: I agree with that.

But he didn’t really because it went on for another eight pages. [You can read the whole thing here. Start on page 12.] What Senator Sessions was getting at is that Latina women have a race and a gender, but white men do not. That (straight) white (christian) men are the default and do not have a sexuality or a religion that can influence their worldview – but everyone else does.

So what I would like to see from my Senator, Chuck Schumer, the new Senate Minority Leader and member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, is that he and other Democrats take each of his outrageously racist statements and make him spend an hour or more defending them. If he could question Justice Sotomayor for simply stating that people of different genders and ethnicities have different viewpoints, let’s see what we can do with “The KKK was ok until I heard they get stoned” and “The NAACP is un-American.*” Seriously. Beat the dead horse until it putrefies. Make him sit there for eleven fucking hours like we spent on Benghazi.

I do not know what the future holds. But I feel like my personality is coming back to me. My optimism, however muted must still be in my heart somewhere. I have not capitulated to nihilism. Not yet. And I know this because of the email exchange I had with a family member last night.

Elizabeth,

The election has thrown me, as I’m sure you understand.
During the Bush administration, I just kind of stuck my head in the sand.
I know things will suck too much if I do that, so I want to do something to try to help.
I wrote the NRDC to see if they have anything I can volunteer to help with. If they don’t, I’ll donate, but look at other organizations as well.

In thinking about it, it’s seeming pointless. With morons controlling every level, what good is giving to causes that they don’t care about. How can a lobbyist for a cause they don’t care about, change their mind. Short of an organization telling Trump that they will give him a trillion dollars, and make him the first trillionaire, I don’t think anything will stop him from advancing his own business interests.

Am I wrong about that? While sitting and doing nothing is pointless, will donating/volunteering actually get anything done?

Your thoughts are greatly appreciated.

-DL

Dear DL,

This election has thrown most people who voted. Always remember – Hillary Clinton won the popular vote. We are in the majority.

It’s a real and serious loss. People are grieving the future we thought we were going to have. And to make things worse, most of us were certain Hillary Clinton was going to win. It’s not like 2004 when everyone was uncertain. When you prime the brain for reward and get punishment, it really screws your brain chemistry. So there’s a physiological reason that this hurts so bad.

You asked “will donating/volunteering actually get anything done?”

And the answer is of course YES. Hillary Clinton said it herself in her concession speech, “This loss hurts, but please never stop believing that fighting for what’s right is worth it.”

I don’t know what’s going to happen to our country. Donald Trump is somewhere between Michael Bloomberg and Hitler, and looking at his transition team, and the appointments he’s making, he’s certainly not a third way centrist like Bloomberg.

But I was raised by to always try and do good no matter what. I’m going to focus a lot on abortion funds because I still believe they are the best way to help people in need immediately. But there are plenty of other things to do.

The NRDC is a good start. If you are interested in Environmental issues I would also recommend the Sierra Club – they are having a fundraising drive and gearing up for legal battles to come. They also have many local chapters you can get involved with. Also check out 350.org which is explicitly focused on climate change.

The federal government may be lost for a while but that is a reason to focus on state and local government. A good sign that America will not fall to fascism is that dozens of mayors and governors have released statements saying that they will still be sanctuary cities for undocumented immigrants and will not waiver on their anti-discrimination policies for racial, ethnic, religious and LGBT minorities. Maybe you know your Congressional Representative and Senators, but what is going on in your town? Do you read your local paper? Now would be a good time to subscribe. Who runs the local government – both at the city and state level? You have a state assembly member and a state senator [Unless you live in Nebraska, then you just have one]. Find out who these people are and write to them frequently.

If you want to know how one person can make a difference, I will spare you the quotes you see on inspirational posters and share with you a true story which I’m stealing from wikipedia:

At the time, the Japanese government required that visas be issued only to those who had gone through appropriate immigration procedures and had enough funds. Most of the refugees did not fulfill these criteria. Sugihara dutifully contacted the Japanese Foreign Ministry three times for instructions. Each time, the Ministry responded that anybody granted a visa should have a visa to a third destination to exit Japan, with no exceptions. From 18 July to 28 August 1940, aware that applicants were in danger if they stayed behind, Sugihara decided to grant visas on his own. He ignored the requirements and issued ten-day visas to Jews for transit through Japan, in violation of his orders. Given his inferior post and the culture of the Japanese Foreign Service bureaucracy, this was an unusual act of disobedience. He spoke to Soviet officials who agreed to let the Jews travel through the country via the Trans-Siberian Railway at five times the standard ticket price.

Sugihara continued to hand-write visas, reportedly spending 18–20 hours a day on them, producing a normal month’s worth of visas each day, until 4 September, when he had to leave his post before the consulate was closed. By that time he had granted thousands of visas to Jews, many of whom were heads of households and thus permitted to take their families with them. According to witnesses, he was still writing visas while in transit from his hotel and after boarding the train at the Kaunas Railway Station, throwing visas into the crowd of desperate refugees out of the train’s window even as the train pulled out. In final desperation, blank sheets of paper with only the consulate seal and his signature (that could be later written over into a visa) were hurriedly prepared and flung out from the train. As he prepared to depart, he said, “Please forgive me. I cannot write anymore. I wish you the best.”

When he bowed deeply to the people before him, someone exclaimed, “Sugihara. We’ll never forget you. I’ll surely see you again!” Sugihara himself wondered about official reaction to the thousands of visas he issued. Many years later, he recalled, “No one ever said anything about it. I remember thinking that they probably didn’t realize how many I actually issued.” The total number of Jews saved by Sugihara is in dispute, estimating about 6,000; family visas—which allowed several people to travel on one visa—were also issued, which would account for the much higher figure. The Simon Wiesenthal Center has estimated that Chiune Sugihara issued transit visas for about 6,000 Jews and that around 40,000 descendants of the Jewish refugees are alive today because of his actions.

Things really suck right now, and I can’t tell you if or when they will get better. But anything that you do to help other people or your country in this dark time will help, will make a difference and will be worth it.

Well here we are at the end of the second election during my 33 years and the fourth in our 240 years where one person (ooh I get to say “person” now and not “man”) has won the popular vote for the presidency but lost the electoral college. God, our system is arcane and incomprehensible.

I’m sad and I’m angry and I will probably be OK. Probably. As long as we get one thing straight. Stop gaslighting me. Stop telling me Donald Trump didn’t say the things that he said, that I didn’t hear him with my own ears, or worse that he didn’t mean them. Despite being a mixed ethnicity liberal woman in New York City I have a very simple approach to interpersonal relations: listen to what people say. “Listen, don’t just wait to talk” is one of the best pieces of advice I have ever received. And I try to live by it every day.

“When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.” -Maya Angelou

So believe me when I say I was listening to Donald Trump. And I heard him. Loud and clear.

Hell, now that he’s issuing policy papers I don’t even have to suffer his terrible oratory. I can read what he has to say and we can look at it together America. Right there in plain English.

If you have managed to convince yourself that his whole campaign was some big fucking joke, that he didn’t really mean it, that he would never actually, could never do those things – STOP. You can’t know that. Telling yourself you somehow have an alternate way of knowing how another person will act aside from their previous words and actions may comfort you, but in the end you are hurting yourself by believing in a delusion that will not come true.

“You think you know someone. But mostly you just know what you want to know.” -Joe Hill

And you are HURTING ME. Every time someone tells me “it’s going to be ok.” “Everything is going to be fine.” “The Republicans will stop him.” You are causing me pain. You are telling me that I did not see the things I saw or hear the things I heard. You are telling Mexicans that he didn’t call them rapists. You are telling Muslims that he didn’t say he would ban them from entering the United States. You are telling women he didn’t brag about grabbing by them by the pussy. You are telling girls that he didn’t walk into their dressing rooms unannounced to leer at their naked bodies.

And finally, a word about the people who voted for Donald Trump. Jay Smooth said we should focus on “that racist thing you said/did” rather than “you are a racist.” I can’t know what’s in the hearts of 60 million Americans. I know what the Trump supporters I know personally have said (lots of racist, sexist, homophobic, Islamophobic comments, climate change denialism…) and I know what the person they voted for said. So I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that voting for Donald Trump is a racist act. And it doesn’t matter what’s in their hearts.

If you voted for a racist sexual predator because he said he would repeal NAFTA, YOU STILL VOTED FOR A RACIST SEXUAL PREDATOR.

If you voted for an Islamophobic fascist because you wanted a tax cut, YOU STILL VOTED FOR AN ISLAMOPHOBIC FASCIST.

So please America. I’m not stupid. I know what I saw. I know what I heard. Stop telling me to doubt my own memories and perceptions to ease your own conscience about what you did, or soothe your anxieties that we have elected a president who is a fascist. No one knows what will happen next. But I certainly know what happened in this campaign over the past two years, I will not deny it and you cannot take my knowledge away from me.

]]>http://www.politicalflavors.com/2016/11/03/feminist-coffee-hour-episode-14-clinton-vs-trump/feed/1Why I Bowled For Abortion Access While I Was (Trying To Get) Pregnanthttp://www.politicalflavors.com/2016/09/28/why-i-bowled-for-abortion-access-while-i-was-trying-to-get-pregnant/
http://www.politicalflavors.com/2016/09/28/why-i-bowled-for-abortion-access-while-i-was-trying-to-get-pregnant/#respondWed, 28 Sep 2016 10:00:46 +0000http://www.politicalflavors.com/?p=4200Note: This piece has been corrected. See below.

In 2015, no one knew I was trying to get pregnant, but this year many of my friends and family knew that I was pregnant while I made facebook and blog posts, and tweeted asking for money to pay for other women’s abortions. When I had just started to show, I organized a comedy show at my (Unitarian Universalist) church to raise money for the cause. This is probably something few others can say they’ve done!

I dreaded someone calling me out for a perceived hypocrisy or heartlessness. I see my fundraising activities as wholly compatible with my desire to be a mother and my compassion for other people. Reproductive justice means that everyone should be free to make the decision to parent or not. And my decision to become a mother does not mean that others must or should make the same choice. My freedom is bound to everyone else’s, and so raising money for abortion funds fits with that belief.

Being pregnant for this year’s NYAAF event was especially hard because their email list was somehow leaked or hacked [SEE UPDATE BELOW] to antichoice extremists who took the opportunity to harass those fundraising. I was sent disturbing bloody fetus pictures (which FYI are often photoshopped or pictures of miscarriages, not abortions) and a picture of a sonogram with a though bubble saying “I hope I can grow up and go bowling one day mommy.” Was I upset because I suddenly realized abortion was wrong? Not in the least. As I progressed into my second trimester, this kind of rhetoric did not reassure me that people were looking out for the “life” within me. Rather, when I heard people going on about late term abortions, what I heard was “If something goes wrong with your pregnancy at this point, you deserve to die.”

I did many things to give my baby the safest and healthiest pregnancy I possibly could. And raising money for abortion funds was something I did to both protect my own life, and to create a world where everyone is free to make the best decisions for themselves and their own families.

UPDATE: See the following message from Heather K. Sager, Volunteer Coordinator – New York Abortion Access Fund

In the piece you mention that our email list was “somehow leaked or hacked.” I want to take this opportunity to clarify that in fact, it was not NYAAF’s email list, but rather the entire fundraising website for NNAF that was hacked. This was the work of a malicious attack on the larger web server, which ultimately meant that email addresses were accessed, rather than internally or purposefully leaked.

I know that immediately after the attack we were able to share information on the security steps NNAF took in order to ensure that this is prevented and that everyone’s security is protected going forward. This included immediately hiring a security specialist, providing Q&A sessions on cyber security for those whose accounts were affected, and ensuring that additional resources were and continue to be available. I am more than happy to discuss these with you should you have any questions on this.

On behalf of NYAAF, we would also greatly appreciate it if you could correct the language in the article, so that it does not imply that anyone at NYAAF or NNAF was complicit in the attacks. The piece is really great, but I do want to be clear that no one in either organization had a part in the server being hacked.

]]>http://www.politicalflavors.com/2016/09/28/why-i-bowled-for-abortion-access-while-i-was-trying-to-get-pregnant/feed/0Coming Soon: Thinkpieces About Pregnancy And Motherhoodhttp://www.politicalflavors.com/2016/09/15/coming-soon-thinkpieces-about-pregnancy-and-motherhood/
http://www.politicalflavors.com/2016/09/15/coming-soon-thinkpieces-about-pregnancy-and-motherhood/#respondThu, 15 Sep 2016 18:01:16 +0000http://www.politicalflavors.com/?p=4197So as you may have heard, my husband and I welcomed a son last week. I am so happy that we are doing well and slowly getting the hang of this new phase in our lives. I do intend to keep blogging and podcasting, and there’s a few things I have to say about this process which I’ve been kicking around in my head for many months. I still want to write about politics and pop culture but I have a new lens with which to view the world that I want to explore. I hope you will indulge me!

People I know and respect along with a ton of people I don’t know have latched on to the meme that Hillary Clinton is Dolores Umbridge, the sickeningly sweet teacher at Hogwarts who tortures Harry, is useless as a Defense Against The Dark Arts Teacher (though weren’t they all) and has a generally fascistic worldview.

I mean, I guess? Clinton voted for the USA Patriot Act and she views Edward Snowden as a criminal more than a whistleblower. That’s kinda fascist. But she’s also solidly against torture, said that we should screen and accept Syrian refugees and is making one of the themes of her campaign “Love Trumps Hate.” So, maybe?

What bothers me the most about this comparison though is how things end for Umbridge. Did you forget that part? I’m almost positive most people have, especially when making this comparison. She’s raped by centaurs. And it’s supposed to be funny. When she comes back to Hogwarts, she’s in shock, and our heroes know what happened. Ron makes clopping hoof noises to scare her (trigger her?) and Hermione and Ginny crack up. Granted, they’re teenagers, and they have bad judgement. But no one in authority tells them “Hey buzz off, that’s not funny.”

Similarly, though even more geeky and less widespread I see Trekkies making “Hillary Clinton is Winn Adami” jokes. On Deep Space Nine, Winn Adami, played by the amazingly badass Louise Fletcher, was one of the best villans in the history of Star Trek. She’s a religious cleric with both fascistic and theocratic tendencies (although on her home planet of Bajor it’s pretty accepted that the religious leadership shares power with the elected government). She’s a master at manipulating people’s fears to get what she wants no matter the consequences. Like Umbridge, she’s uses sickeningly sweet faux coquettishness to mask her true intentions. Unlike Umbridge, as the writers reveal the complexity of her character, we are meant to empathize with her as a person while still despising her actions. Her crisis of faith is relatable to so many people who have searched for truth.

Is Hillary Clinton like Winn Adami? They’re both blonde and religious and ambitious. I suppose you could draw it out further by bringing up Clinton’s connections to The Family. But that’s still a bit of a stretch.

And yet, like Umbridge, in the end Winn Adami is also raped. Deep Space Nine draws out a more complex story than Order of the Phoenix. Winn is seduced and deceived by her greatest enemy and she is sexually, emotionally and spiritually exploited. The storyline is fascinating one, with an unsettling trainwreck quality that still viscerally disturbs me.

I know that most people making the “Hillary is Umbridge” or “Hillary is Winn” jokes don’t really mean that they think Hillary Clinton should be raped by centaurs or a sociopath in disguise as punishment for her more imperialistic tendencies. I’m not immune to this myself. I love Tom Perrotta novels and when I saw people comparing Hillary Clinton to Tracy Flick I saw it as a backhanded compliment. Tracy Flick kicks ass. She’s super smart and accomplished and wins in the end.

Then I remembered that most of the plot of “Election” is driven by the fact that Tracy is seduced (statutorily raped) by her Math teacher, Dave. Tracy is smarter than most of her peers but she is far behind them in terms of social skills. She has no real friends. This makes her an exceptionally easy target to be groomed and taken advantage of by a much older authority figure. Dave’s actions set off a chain of events which Tracy’s teacher Jim blames her for on some level. In a moment of frustration Jim threatens to ruin Tracy’s reputation by telling the whole student body what happened to her. Tracy takes this in stride because she has a very thick skin, but it’s hard to watch her be manipulated and then blamed and threatened for it.

So perhaps this isn’t the best comparison either.

This is one of those things that once seen, cannot be unseen. So keep that in mind. If you keep making those clever memes, I’m going to keep rolling my eyes and thinking “Ugh. Raped by Centaurs. Really?”

There were Negro-joke books, Jewish-joke books, Polish-joke books, Italian-joke books. They used ethnic jokes to reduce tension in the 1930s, ’40s, ’50s. And they’d laugh at each other’s jokes and hurl another one. But it still flows through ethnic America, you know. There are hundreds of things that people would like to say. So here’s this guy — he doubles down on them, he blows their minds. So that’s the first way he got their attention.

And I wanted to ask him, “Don’t you know white privilege is conditional?” Nader is Lebanese and in the United States many people would not consider him white if they knew that.

I have personal experience with this, I have discussed my mixed ethnicity on this blog. Many people who have conditional white privilege – Jews, light skinned Latinos, Arabs and other POC who pass as white – will have a moment in a conversation with a white person where some detail about their heritage is made known and something shifts in the white person’s tone or body language and you know they’ve just recategorized you in their head. I know Ralph Nader has had this moment, and it’s why I find his statement inexcusable.

I think it’s true that white people should not speak over or for people of color. There is a fine line between being an ally and taking up space that should be reserved for someone else. I also think that if you have privilege you should call out oppression and hatred where you see it, not to talk over or for other people but because it’s the morally right thing to do.

I don’t expect Nezua to intuit my heritage, and even if he knew that my father is a Colombian immigrant, his point would still stand as I do benefit from white privilege and I am not Mexican.

The reasons that I feel the need to call out Trump’s racism are both moral and personal.

I believe strongly that I should consider how my vote impacts everyone, not just myself.

I think that Trump’s comments, while specifically anti-Mexican encourage hatred against all Latinos including my family and possibly myself.

Finally, there is an ugly strain of “they’re coming for our women” underlying Trump’s remarks. Through a series of inadvisable clicks I spent a good portion of a recent afternoon reading through an infamous misogynist blog which has become a pro-Trump White Nationalist hellhole. And I read a lot of comments. Many Trump supporters are insecure men obsessed with their fear white women having sex with and bearing children with men of color. As the daughter of a white American mother and a Latino immigrant father, it was deeply unsettling to read these comments. I am a person who, in their mind should not exist. I am a mistake, an abomination, the worst outcome their fevered imaginations can muster. I am “White Genocide.” My mother is a ruined woman and my father is pure evil depravity. These are the people who filled the rallies for Donald Trump, the people who voted for him in Republican primaries, and who will vote for him in November. This is what they think of me.

I do not ever want to speak over or for groups I do not belong to. I only want to speak for myself. In my words and actions, believe I am morally obligated to consider how I impact other people from other groups.

Silly season continues and it seems we are going through the news cycle of whiny privileged crybabies who claim to be on the left, but also somehow think that Donald Trump will be a better president than Hillary Clinton. I voted for Bernie Sanders, mostly because I wanted to send a signal to Hillary Clinton that many of her policies are unacceptable to me – her vote on the Iraq War and wishy washy-ness on the TPP and Keystone XL pipeline. It would have been pretty amazing if Sanders had won the nomination, but as history shows us, it’s extremely difficult to win a primary against the candidate backed by the party and this year was no exception to that rule.

A Politico article by Yves Smith caught my eye today. It’s titled: “Why Some of the Smartest Progressives I Know Will Vote for Trump over Hillary.” And it posits that progressives should vote for Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton. The article is poorly sourced and doesn’t seem to have been fact checked. It amounts to a temper tantrum over Bernie Sanders not winning the primary. This isn’t just taking your ball and going home, it’s taking your ball and destroying the country in a mushroom cloud of entitled spiteful vengeance.

Smith quotes one of her commenters on her blog Naked Capitalism,

I don’t want to vote for Trump. I want to vote for Bernie. But I have reached the point where I feel like voting for Trump against Clinton would be doing my patriotic duty. … If the only way to escape a trap is to gnaw off my leg, I’d like to think I’d have the guts to do it.

This is an odd framing of the election. For Latinos, Muslims, and many other Americans, Donald Trump is that bear trap and the vote for Hillary Clinton is the gnawing off of one’s leg. I would say voting for Trump is like staying in the trap and dying of gangrene or lighting yourself on fire.

The Sanders supporters I interact with also reject Hillary’s trickle-down feminism as a substitute for economic and social justice. Clinton is correct when she points out that there is a glass-ceiling issue for women. There are fewer female CEOs, billionaires and senators. Women in the elite don’t have it as good as men. But pray tell, what is having more women, or Hispanics or blacks, in top roles going to do for nurses and hospital orderlies, or the minority group members disproportionately represented in low-wage jobs like part-time fast food workers? Class mobility has become close to nonexistent in America. If you are born in one of the lower-income cohorts, you are almost certain to stay there.

I would agree in part that much of what passes for feminism these days has no room for women of color or poor women. But I do not see that when I look at Hillary Clinton’s platform. How are paid maternity leave and universal pre-K “trickle down feminism?” These programs would be a great benefit to all mothers. (And children. And fathers.)

Then there are questions of competence. Hillary has a résumé of glittering titles with disasters or at best thin accomplishments under each. Her vaunted co-presidency with Bill? After her first major project, health care reform, turned into such a debacle that it was impossible to broach the topic for a generation, she retreated into a more traditional first lady role.

Has it ever occurred to Smith that part of the reason Clinton failed was systemic sexism? People were shocked and outraged that she was taking on any official role in her husband’s administration. They called it unprecedented nepotism. But in reality, going back to our second President, John Adams, most Presidents of the United States have relied on the wives for advice and counsel. Formalizing the role was too much for us to handle in 1993, but that doesn’t mean that First Ladies were not doing lots of work for their husbands. Letting this work remain invisible is a sad consequence of patriarchy.

As New York senator, she accomplished less with a bigger name and from a more powerful state than Sanders did.

As secretary of state, she participated and encouraged strategically pointless nation-breaking in Iraq and Syria.

Equating our involvement in Syria with our invasion of Iraq is entirely disingenuous. I am and will always be morally outraged at the Iraq War. But Syria was already broken when we got there. Equivocating the two is disingenuous and minimizes the harm we did in Iraq.

She bureaucratically outmaneuvered Obama, leading to U.S. intervention in Libya, which he has called the worst decision of his administration.

They are willing to gamble, given that outsider presidents like Jimmy Carter and celebrity governors like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jesse Ventura didn’t get much done, that a Trump presidency represents an acceptable cost of inflicting punishment on the Democratic Party for 20 years of selling out ordinary Americans.

Jimmy: You know you got that Supreme Court, that is such a little poker in my eye!

Sam: Well, believe me, it’s not just a poker in your eye, it’s a poker in the eye of all those people who can’t vote this year by getting rid of preclearance, it’s a poker in the eye of all the families of the dreamers who keep getting deported, it’s a poker in the eye of people who want to have redress in the courts from things like forced arbitration, it’s a poker in the eyes of women in states who are denied access to abortion care. This thing is bigger than a poker. It’s like a cannon to the face.

There is no progressive case to be made for a racist charlatan like Donald Trump. Anyone who tries to convince you of such is selling spite and desperately trying to hide a bruised ego.

]]>http://www.politicalflavors.com/2016/06/10/progressives-i-know-wont-bother-to-fact-check-articles-bashing-hillary-clinton/feed/3Some thoughts on the UUA Common Read: Just Mercy by Bryan Stevensonhttp://www.politicalflavors.com/2016/05/23/some-thoughts-on-the-uua-common-read-just-mercy-by-bryan-stevenson/
http://www.politicalflavors.com/2016/05/23/some-thoughts-on-the-uua-common-read-just-mercy-by-bryan-stevenson/#respondMon, 23 May 2016 10:00:39 +0000http://www.politicalflavors.com/?p=4038

Although Americans take great pride in the freedoms we espouse, the American prison system violates basic human rights in many ways. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which the United States endorsed in 1948, states in Article 5, “No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.” American correctional practice often subjects inmates to abusive treatment, such as torture and rape, and neglects basic human needs such as health care and nutrition. Some suspects are detained without charge, legal counsel, or access to family. While indigent defendants have exactly the same rights to competent counsel as non-indigent defendants, in many states indigent defendants are not provided equality of representation.

The American penchant for retribution squanders opportunities for redemption, rehabilitation, and restoration of the individual offender. Failures in the criminal justice system have created a disenfranchised, stigmatized class who are predominantly from lower-income backgrounds, poorly educated, or from racial and ethnic minorities. The punishment for crime is often simply separation from society, and the sentence one serves is the punishment. In our penal system, punishment often continues even after those convicted have completed their sentence. They are often stripped of voting rights, denied social services, and barred from many professions. If convicted of a drug crime, they become ineligible for federal student loans to attend college. Our criminal justice system makes it exceedingly difficult for anyone to reintegrate into society. People returning to their communities find that they lack opportunity, skills, and social services to fully function in society and hold down jobs, maintain families, or participate in their communities. Therefore, an unacceptable percentage of those released from our prisons and jails recidivate.

Not all prisoners who enter the system leave. One of the most shameful aspects of our current criminal justice system is the death penalty. Many countries have abandoned the practice of capital punishment. Studies fail to demonstrate that the death penalty actually deters crime. While the United States Supreme Court has ruled against the execution of juvenile offenders, the death penalty is still legal in the United States. Experience shows that judges and juries wrongly convict defendants. Given the number of death row inmates released on account of innocence, it is highly likely that we have executed innocent people and will do so again in the future unless we abolish the death penalty.

The first two Principles of Unitarian Universalism address the inherent worth and dignity of every person and justice, equity, and compassion in human relations. Consistent with these fundamental principles, a new corrections policy must place a primary emphasis on community alternatives.

Appalled by the gross injustices in our current criminal justice system, we the member congregations of the Unitarian Universalist Association commit ourselves to working in our communities to reform the criminal justice and correctional systems and effect justice for both victims and violators. We act in the spirit that we are indeed our sisters’ and our brothers’ keepers. Love is our governing principle in all human relationships. Therefore, that we may speak with one voice in unity, though not uniformity, we commit ourselves, our congregations to make good on our Unitarian Universalist heritage and our American promise to be both compassionate and just to all in our society. Through our diligence and perseverance in realizing this promise, we can live the core values of our country and extend the values of our faith to the benefit of others.

And so with this in mind, it is easy to understand why the UUA chose “Just Mercy” as the common read for this congregational year. The book, by Bryan Stevenson chronicles his career as an attorney working to for people on death row, mostly in Georgia and Alabama who have no other access to representation. He built the Equal Justice Initiative which litigates on behalf of condemned prisoners, juvenile offenders, people wrongly convicted or charged with violent crimes, poor people denied effective representation, and others whose trials are marked by racial bias or prosecutorial misconduct. EJI works with communities that have been marginalized by poverty and discouraged by unequal treatment.

Just Mercy’s main thread follows the story of Walter McMillian, a man wrongly convicted of murder and sentenced to death on scant evidence, false testimony and racist rumors. And while his story is compelling, Stevenson puts it in context of the criminal justice system we have today. It’s clear that his work isn’t just about one person. It’s to address the ongoing crisis of our broken criminal justice system.

I was left in awe and amazement at the tenacity and patience of Bryan Stevenson. I am so astounded by people who can spend their whole lives fighting an uphill battle. The book is not about him and gives few details about his personal life. He is very modest about his many great accomplishments in fact. And this perspective of humility and hope frame the book.

Something I keep coming back to when I think about the death penalty is that I, like everyone else, am a fallible human being subject to amoral impulses. There is an anecdote in the book about about a man who was the victim of abuse as a child and was suffering from PTSD after serving in Vietnam. After returning to the United States, he tried to win back an ex girlfriend by PUTTING A BOMB on her porch. In his distorted mind, he would save her from the bomb, and win back her love. But that didn’t happen. It went off, killed a young girl and maimed another in the process. It was and is very hard for me to feel sorry for him. But I think that’s exactly why we need to be careful in how we adjudicate these crimes. Our emotions cloud our judgement. In my outrage over his crime I do not care about the mitigating circumstances of this man’s victimization as a small, helpless child or the mental illness he could not avoid after his country drafted him and sent him to fight in a war. But Stevenson included this story in the book to show how brutal the death penalty is. The chapter details the visceral horror of the electric chair, which this man was put to death in. And even though somewhere in my heart I want vengeance for his victims, I know that his execution did nothing to help them. In fact, the surviving girl’s family approached Stevenson and asked him for help. They told him that putting someone else to death would not heal her. And I do feel some dissonance that we, to quote and old slogan kill people who kill people to show that killing people is wrong.

Although I know this book was meant to expose the injustice of our current system, I was also left with the gladness that people like Bryan Stevenson exist. His optimism and his accomplishments are an inspiration.

In 2004, companies that owned Austin stores selling sex toys and a retail distributor of such products challenged a Texas law outlawing the sale and promotion of supposedly obscene devices. Under the law, a person who violated the statute could go to jail for up to two years. At the time, only three states—Mississippi, Alabama, and Virginia—had similar laws. (The previous year, a Texas mother who was a sales rep for Passion Parties was arrested by two undercover cops for selling vibrators and other sex-related goods at a gathering akin to a Tupperware party for sex toys. No doubt, this had worried businesses peddling such wares.) The plaintiffs in the sex-device case contended the state law violated the right to privacy under the 14th Amendment. They argued that many people in Texas used sexual devices as an aspect of their sexual experiences. They claimed that in some instances one partner in a couple might be physically unable to engage in intercourse or have a contagious disease (such as HIV) and that in these cases such devices could allow a couple to engage in safe sex.

But a federal judge sent them packing, ruling that selling sex toys was not protected by the Constitution. The plaintiffs appealed, and Cruz’s solicitor general office had the task of preserving the law

Sound familiar? You might have seen this video about the law featuring the late Molly Ivins:

Continuing from Corn’s Mother Jones Article,

Cruz’s legal team asserted that “obscene devices do not implicate any liberty interest.” And its brief added that “any alleged right associated with obscene devices” is not “deeply rooted in the Nation’s history and traditions.”

The brief insisted that Texas in order to protect “public morals” had “police-power interests” in “discouraging prurient interests in sexual gratification, combating the commercial sale of sex, and protecting minors.” There was a “government” interest, it maintained, in “discouraging…autonomous sex.”

Question 2: Would a Cruz administration pursue this interest in masturbation police? How?

Question 3: Is there a government interest in discouraging maturbation if you do it with a partner? (Or partners?)

In perhaps the most noticeable line of the brief, Cruz’s office declared, “There is no substantive-due-process right to stimulate one’s genitals for non-medical purposes unrelated to procreation or outside of an interpersonal relationship.” That is, the pursuit of such happiness had no constitutional standing. And the brief argued there was no “right to promote dildos, vibrators, and other obscene devices.”

Question 5: Can you use obscene devices during procreative sex? In the Catholic Church, it’s all good as long as the penis ends up depositing semen into the vagina. Would that be a policy you would be willing to pursue?

If you are going to be at a Ted Cruz event any time in the near future, please ask him one of these questions! You don’t even have to credit me. Just send me a tweet and let me know what he says.

He recalled how Mr. Trump’s father, Fred C. Trump, once stepped out of his limo on the club’s gravel driveway and remarked to Mr. Senecal, “Somebody better get that coin.” The butler went on his hands and knees and after a few minutes found a crusty penny.
“His eyes were incredible,” Mr. Senecal said of Fred Trump. “Mr. Trump has the same eyes.”

vs

Mr. Senecal adored the Trump children, but found Ivana, Mr. Trump’s first wife, an especially demanding presence. She would instruct him to “get that spot out of that rug” and then do it herself if he failed. She would occasionally tell Mr. Senecal to have the gardeners go inside because she wanted to swim naked in the pool.

To recap – getting down on your hands and knees in gravel to search for a penny – “incredible.” Wanting a clean rug and privacy in your own home – “especially demanding.” Got it.

Then there was this charming tidbit:

In the interview, he offered a profane description for Mrs. Clinton, the front-runner in the Democratic presidential race.

I’m assuming he meant a cunt? The NYT isn’t so squeamish they wouldn’t print the word “bitch” is it?

]]>http://www.politicalflavors.com/2016/03/15/donald-trumps-butler-is-a-sexist-clown/feed/0On International Women’s Day, Some Things I Think You Should Knowhttp://www.politicalflavors.com/2016/03/07/on-international-womens-day-some-things-i-think-you-should-know/
http://www.politicalflavors.com/2016/03/07/on-international-womens-day-some-things-i-think-you-should-know/#respondMon, 07 Mar 2016 13:56:16 +0000http://www.politicalflavors.com/?p=4088This post is modified from a UU service I led about International Women’s Day.

As we celebrate International Women’s Day in the United States, there are some things I think you should know.

The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights created the Working Group on the issue of discrimination against women in law and in practice in 2011 to identify good practices related to the elimination of laws that discriminate against women. In December of 2015, the group issued a report on the status of women in the United States. The group sent a three person delegation to investigate for 10 days in Washington DC, Alabama, Oregon and Texas. Some of their key findings:

– The United States has not yet ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All of Forms of Discrimination Against Women or CEDAW, and is one of only seven countries to have failed to do so.

Not listed in the UN Report, but a fact familiar to me from my own following of this issue, is that opposition to CEDAW stems largely from the Christian right who objects to the fact that many countries who have ratified the treaty have gone on to legalize abortion or liberalize their abortion laws. Abortion is legal in the United States, at least nominally so and last year at our General Assembly, Unitarian Universalists passed a statement of conscience supporting Reproductive Justice. However, the World Congress of Families on the other hand is vocal and active in opposing US ratification of CEDAW because they fear it would hamper their efforts to make abortion illegal in the United States.

Moving on, the UN working group noted that”

Women hold 19.4% of Congressional seats and 24.9% of seats in state legislatures. This ranks us 72nd in the world in terms of women’s representation in government.

Not only do we have a lack of representation of women in government, some women cannot vote at all.

“changes in voter identification laws which increase bureaucratic requirements for voter identification, in particular are problematic for women who change their name in marriage. And policies which reduce the number of voting centers can make registration and voting less accessible for the poor, of whom a majority are women.”

Side note, for more information about Unitarian Universalists working to restore the Voting Rights act, look up the James Reeb Project.

The report continues,

“we are shocked by the lack of mandatory standards for workplace accommodation for pregnant women, post-natal mothers and persons with care responsibilities, which are required in international human rights law. The US is one of only two countries in the world without a mandatory paid maternity leave for all women workers. The Group regards it as vital that 14 weeks paid maternity leave for pregnancy, birth, and post natal related needs be guaranteed for all women workers in public and private employment and advises that best practice is payment from a social security fund which does not impose the direct burden on employers.

“In the United States, the wage gap is 21%, affecting women’s income throughout their lives, and increasing women’s poverty in old age. During the last decade little improvement has been made in closing it. Education increases women’s earnings but does not eliminate the gap, which is in fact largest for those with the highest levels of educational attainment. Women’s earnings differ considerably by ethnicity: Afro-American, Native American and Hispanic women have the lowest earnings.”

“Women own over one third of US firms, mainly in small and medium size businesses. However, the Small Businesses Administration has a stated goal of awarding only 5% of federal contracts to women-owned businesses. This goal has never been reached.”

In the United States, maternal mortality has increased by 136% between 1990 and 2013. These numbers also hide distressing ethnic and socio-economic disparities. Afro-American women are nearly four times more at risk to die in childbirth. States with high poverty rates have a 77% higher maternal mortality rate.

The working group acknowledges the significant efforts deployed at the legislative and institutional levels to lower the prevalence of violence against women. However, they share the concerns on the alarming high rates of violence against Native-American women. We also share the concerns regarding the fatal consequences for women of lack of gun control, in particular in cases of domestic violence. Our group also deplores police brutality and the increased number of homicides of Afro-American women by the police. Our attention was also drawn to numerous cases of violence against LBTQ women, including homicides.

I suggest you read the whole report, which elaborates on the points above and also discusses gender disparities in poverty, access to health care and reproductive justice in further detail.

Emma Lazarus is my nominee to be the first woman on U.S. currency. Lazarus’ words, inscribed on the base of the Statue of Liberty, have come to symbolize America as a nation of immigrants. She was no immigrant herself, having been born into a prominent New York family whose Sephardic Jewish ancestors traced their roots back to colonial times. Nonetheless, she managed to capture the unique aspects of American immigration. What other country in the world has welcomed so many people from across the globe and given them the opportunity to rise as high as their talents and hard work would take them? Most important, the United States confers on immigrants an equal claim to consider themselves Americans as those born here.

Lazarus’ words are a profound statement of American Exceptionalism. They remind us of who we are and where we come from:

And they remind us, too, of what we’re capable of doing: Turning those tired, poor, huddled masses into Americans. At a time when immigration once again roils American politics, putting Emma Lazarus’ on the bill would be a fitting tribute not only to women but to these principles.

Rachel Carson

Rachel Louise Carson was an American marine biologist and writer. During her career working for the US Bureau of Fisheries she began to notice the harmful impact that pesticides, especially DDT had on wildlife. She was concerned as early as the mid 1940’s and gathered evidence for many years. In 1962, she published her second book, Silent Spring which documented the harms of pesticides ranging from damage to fish and wildlife to impacts on human health, and as suggested by the title – the extinction of several species of birds. Although the book was reviewed by other scientific experts at the time, Carson immediately faced harsh criticism from chemical companies like DuPont. Others accused her of being a communist. However her work was very influential and inspired the passage of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act – a law which many of us owe the safety of our drinking water, seafood and environment to today. She is credited by many to be the mother of the modern environmental movement, using science as the basis for a change in policy. Although she died of breast cancer in 1964, Carson was posthumously awarded the presidential medal of freedom by Jimmy Carter in 1980.

Rosa Parks

Many Americans know the story of Rosa Parks and her role in kicking off the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955. But history has sanitized her legacy and there is so much more to her that we should learn. Rosa Parks organized local chapters of the NAACP at a time when the organization was outlawed. She helped black women who were victims of sexual assault, most notably Recy Taylor who was raped by a group of white men in 1944. Parks led the effort calling for a criminal investigation and justice long before the Second Wave of feminism or Take Back the night rallies when feminists fought to bring the unspeakable out into the light. She helped campaign for John Conyers when he was first starting out in politics and worked in his Detroit office until she retired in 1988. Parks was friends with Malcom X, believing that the Civil Rights Movement needed all kinds of people involved – from church leaders to radical activists. It saddens me that when I was in school I was taught Rosa Parks was just a lady who was tired on a bus and not the tireless and influential force for Civil Rights that she actually was. If you want to learn more, I strongly recommend the book “The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks.”

So, now that you know my picks, which American woman do you think should be on the $10?

I’ve been on the internet long enough to expect trolls. What I am surprised about (and maybe I shouldn’t be) is that so many people will watch this ad and think “Yes! *That’s* responsible fatherhood.” And not “I feel sorry for that girl.”

The “over protective father being played for comedy meme” is pervasive in our culture as this ad shows. And it’s incredibly sexist, perpetuating ideas of women as property and alienating teenage girls them from a healthy relationship with their own fathers and boys their own age.

What gets me is they hypocrisy of at least some of my detractors. It seems like I got two flavors – general MRA and Christian Patriarchy. The MRAs are giant hypocrites on this one. Men who sling around “incel” and “kissless virgin” as fates worse than death are excited by a commercial where a Dad constantly prevents his daughter from kissing her suitor. This seems counter productive. Unless they really do think that kissing is bad. If that’s the case, then a change of rhetoric is needed. Stop pretending a lack of intimate contact is a bad thing. Isn’t it a badge of honor that you didn’t sully some young woman with your filthy mouth?

As for the Christian Patriarchy types, I suppose that it’s exciting to see a famous comedian and a major corporation expressing their worldview on such a big platform. But they dropped the ball when they started annoying people on Twitter. No one has ever changed religions because some stranger disagreed with their tweet. Maybe take out your own ad next time. It’s what the Scientologists did.

]]>http://www.politicalflavors.com/2016/01/07/feminist-coffee-hour-episode-four-adam-lee-objectivist-gender-roles-and-paul-ryan/feed/2My Favorites of 2015 That You Might Have Missedhttp://www.politicalflavors.com/2015/12/31/my-favorites-of-2015-that-you-might-have-missed/
http://www.politicalflavors.com/2015/12/31/my-favorites-of-2015-that-you-might-have-missed/#commentsThu, 31 Dec 2015 21:08:03 +0000http://www.politicalflavors.com/?p=4004Here’s some of my favorite things that you might have missed from 2015!

Television

Of course, I love Jessica Jones. But a close second is the BBC miniseries adaptation of Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. Bertie Carvel, Eddie Marsan, Charlotte Riley, Marc Warren, Ariyon Bakare and the rest of the cast deliver wonderful performances. Given that this is my favorite novel, I had very high expectations and I am entirely pleased and delighted.

Books

I agree with all of the critics who selected Between the World and Me for their top pic. If you haven’t read it, go read it right now.

We Believe The Children by Richard Beck If you understand the McMartin trial, you understand contemporary America. Beck explains the convergence of politics, sexuality, feminism, history and psychology that allowed innocent people to lose their freedom. What compounds the tragedy is that in a few of these cases children were being abused, just not by their day care providers who went to prison or the satanic cults of our fevered imaginations.

]]>http://www.politicalflavors.com/2015/12/31/my-favorites-of-2015-that-you-might-have-missed/feed/2The Four Reasons Leia Never Got Around To Training As A Jedihttp://www.politicalflavors.com/2015/12/21/the-four-reasons-leia-never-got-around-to-training-as-a-jedi/
http://www.politicalflavors.com/2015/12/21/the-four-reasons-leia-never-got-around-to-training-as-a-jedi/#respondMon, 21 Dec 2015 19:10:30 +0000http://www.politicalflavors.com/?p=3994

This post contains spoilers for Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and tangentially some of the EU novels.

There’s three reasons for this which can be explained by or inferred from the Expanded Universe novels and one I thought of just recently. Maybe in future movies we will get a canonical explanation, but this is what I’ve got so far:

4. Leia is just too damn busy. In the novels, Leia is a politician and a bureaucrat with an active career running the Republic. In TFA she’s a General (When I saw the words “General Leia Organa” in the opening crawl, I almost died of happiness) but that would still be an incredibly demanding career. She’s also a wife and a mother. Training to be a Jedi is just one more thing on her to do list for her to feel guilty about not getting around to.

3. It brings up bad memories. It takes Leia years to come to terms with the fact that Darth Vader is her biological father. Her career as a leader (whether in politics or the military) is what her adopted family groomed her for and what she is good at. Becoming a Jedi would feel a lot like choosing Vader over her loving parents who were not Sith Lords.

2. That’s Luke’s thing. This is conjecture, but Leia is a bit of a “type A” personality. She’s a perfectionist and what’s the point in taking on Jedi Training when Luke is already the best there is?

1. This is the saddest one and something that struck me in a moment of fridge horror. Jedi are immortal. Whey they die, their bodies merge with The Force and they become “Force ghosts” forever. That’s an awfully long time to live without Han Solo.

There’s an idea floating around our cultural conversation that has too long gone unquestioned. This is one of those fallacies that is so much a part of our rhetoric that we hardly even recognize we are perpetuating it. It’s the idea that sexual arousal is inherently meaningful aside from one’s personal subjective experience or actual participation in sex with a partner. And this is not only wrong, but it can be very harmful.

If anything, we don’t have enough compassion, education or care around human sexuality. And I wish we lived in a world where we took care of ourselves and each other in that way. As we do not, I think that our ignorance is part of what lets this fallacy flourish.

Here’s what I mean. I see this on the Red Pill, but it’s in other places too. It’s the idea that a person getting sexually excited means anything else than their particular brain was stimulated and is now sending the signal “hey there goes a good person to mate with.” So when someone says they wouldn’t vote for Hillary Clinton (or Bernie Sanders) because they aren’t hot and don’t want to look at someone old on TV – they are falling victim to this fallacy – that the amount of blood flowing to their junk can tell them anything meaningful about who should be president. (Insert Martin O’Daddy/Marco Rubio-oh-oh-OH joke here.)

Recently on the Red Pill, a guy dismissed Philippa Rice, best selling illustrator and author as:

I wanted to respond that she’s probably laughing all the way to the bank, but I didn’t. Because according to this guy, her creative or financial success mean nothing if she can’t give him a boner. She has no other value as a human being.

It goes the other way too, an attractive person is seen as being capable regardless of their qualifications. Tons of dudes said they’d vote for Sarah Palin for this reason, as if being attractive means she would be a good leader. Note to those dudes: voting for a person is not an effective way to get that person to sleep with you.

It’s not just manosphere misogynists that do this either. I was giggling over Rachel Bloom’s “Fuck Me, Ray Bradbury” when I sent it to my podcast co-host Karen. She said, “I don’t want to police her sexual choices or her celebration of her sexual choices but wanting to fuck somebody is not a compliment. It doesn’t compliment them for their accomplishments.” And as much as I still like that song, she’s right. Maybe we should lay off the “That person is such an awesome writer/artist/scientist that I want to have sex with them” proclamations. They add nothing to the conversation aside from an acceptable way to say “Hey everyone my genitals are pleasantly engorged right now!”

It’s hard to know how big of a leap there is from defending fictional rapists because the actor who plays them is hot to defending actual rapists because you think the accused person is hot. And it happens all the time. “James Deen [/other famous actor/athlete] can’t be guilty because I personally would have wanted it, ergo she must have wanted it.” As I said, really disgusting, really fast.

In an ideal world, everyone would be healthy and fulfilled in their sexuality. But we need to stop giving that delightful rush of hormones an intrinsic meaning other than “Ooh. I think I’d like some sex now.” It’s meaningful in discerning one’s own sexual desires but says nothing about anyone or anything else.

]]>http://www.politicalflavors.com/2015/11/12/feminist-coffee-hour-episode-three-women-on-the-10/feed/3In Which We Fight Ignorance About Microaggressionshttp://www.politicalflavors.com/2015/11/10/in-which-we-fight-ignorance-about-microaggressions/
http://www.politicalflavors.com/2015/11/10/in-which-we-fight-ignorance-about-microaggressions/#respondWed, 11 Nov 2015 01:27:48 +0000http://www.politicalflavors.com/?p=3966Are you on the edge of your seat waiting for episode three of Feminist Coffee Hour? (Coming very soon, on Thursday!) Listen to Karen and Elizabeth on “In Which We Reveal Our Ignorance” where we discuss microaggressions with Stephen, Sam and Mike.
]]>http://www.politicalflavors.com/2015/11/10/in-which-we-fight-ignorance-about-microaggressions/feed/0American Politics Is Eating Itselfhttp://www.politicalflavors.com/2015/11/09/american-politics-is-eating-itself/
http://www.politicalflavors.com/2015/11/09/american-politics-is-eating-itself/#respondMon, 09 Nov 2015 17:34:40 +0000http://www.politicalflavors.com/?p=3951

This was most on display in the opening monologue, when a man heckled Trump, yelling “You’re a racist!” It was a plant—Larry David, who had been in the cold open, reprising his role as Bernie Sanders—but the punchline, if there was one, went nowhere. Trump was unflappable, because he knew the heckle was coming, and David’s “character” immediately admitted he’d taken cash to yell at Trump. In a few moments of adroit comic shuffling, the show introduced racism, let Trump defuse it, and then revealed it as insincere. That’s a set of actions with profound commentary for what it means to allege racism in this media climate; naturally, then, no performers of color were on stage. To include them would have meant underscoring how messed-up the bit was, and “Saturday Night Live” was not interested in critical thinking last night.

But the PAC’s link to Clinton is irrelevant when you consider Saraiya’s critique. Larry David legitimized Donald Trump. His “joke” was that we all know Trump isn’t really a racist. C’mon you guys it’s just internet crazies and angry Latin@s saying that.

And in response, Deport Racism PAC has said that they’re giving the money to Larry David.

In declaring Larry David the “winner” they either don’t get the “joke,” are pretending not to, or don’t care. I’m leaning towards the latter. Which should make it very hard for anyone to take them seriously as a legitimate anti-racist organization in the future. So in this weekend’s showdown between a xenophobic megalomaniac and a nominally anti-racist PAC, the winner was Lorne Michaels. He played this whole thing expertly, as he should, having been in television for so long.

But in not using satire to speak truth to power, Michaels and David reveal that the game is rigged. Trump looks good, SNL has some of the best ratings in years and Deport Racism PAC insists that they also won somehow. What’s left is a meaningless discourse that’s more about getting attention than making a coherent point or changing anything. “Both sides” are feeding off of one another like a snake eating it’s tail (an example of the tagline for my podcast about the “political ouroboros.”) And the end result is that Trump improved his reputation. After all, that liberal Larry David didn’t think he was a racist!

I truly believe that the totality of American politics is a lot more than Donald Trump. But from conversations with friends and family who aren’t glued to Twitter, cable news and alternative media the way I am most people aren’t thinking about what Paul Ryan will do as Speaker, the climate conference in Paris or the TPP. When most Americans hear “politics” they think “Donald Trump.”

I have written before about how dog whistle rhetoric Republicans use about “taking their country back” feels strangely isolating to me. In general I pass as a white person but every once in a while I am reminded that my status as the daughter of a Latino immigrant means my privilege is conditional on the whims of other white people. And the whole idea that there is a “white genocide” going on is just such a reminder.

The entire concept of “White Genocide” is preposterous and offensive. Immigration is the foundation of the United States, and I believe that we are better equipped to deal with it socially and culturally than much of Western Europe, simply because we have been doing it on a larger scale for longer. But they will figure it out eventually. Underneath alarmist rhetoric about immigration is a fear of white women having children with non white men. That’s at the core of the obscenity “cuckservative” – a conservative who doesn’t oppose immigration (or doesn’t oppose it strongly enough) is therefore assumed to be sexually aroused by the idea of their white wife having sex with a man of color. Underneath the racism is misogyny and natalism.

And this is where it gets personal. As an American with a white mother and a Latino father, I can’t help but feel unsettled by these attacks. That there was something nefarious about their marriage or something wrong with my existence and my heritage. On another level, I can take some sardonic pleasure in knowing that such terrible people consider me to be “wrong.” But it’s unsettling.

There is no wrong way to have an ethnicity or a nationality. The existence of immigrants and people of color is not genocide, and to say so is both bigoted and contrary to the founding principles of this country. So many great Americans were immigrants or the children of immigrants. And we are better and stronger and richer for their contributions. Anti racist does NOT equal anti white. But to be anti-immigrant is anti-American.

In The Guardian, this week there’s a profile of a therapist who counsels wealthy clients who deal with the unique stresses their money brings them.

“We are trained to have empathy, no judgment and so many of the uber wealthy – the 1% of the 1% – they feel that their problems are really not problems. But they are. A lot of therapists do not give enough weight to their issues.”

….

From the Bible to the Lannisters of Game of Thrones, it’s easy to argue that the rich have always been vilified, scorned and envied. But their counsellors argue things have only gotten worse since the financial crisis and the debate over income inequality that has been spurred on by movements like Occupy Wall Street and the Fight for $15 fair wage campaign.

“The Occupy Wall Street movement was a good one and had some important things to say about income inequality, but it singled out the 1% and painted them globally as something negative. It’s an -ism,” said Jamie Traeger-Muney, a wealth psychologist and founder of the Wealth Legacy Group. “I am not necessarily comparing it to what people of color have to go through, but … it really is making value judgment about a particular group of people as a whole.”

The media, she said, is partly to blame for making the rich “feel like they need to hide or feel ashamed”.

I actually am going to recommend some Biblical advice for the wealthy. But first I want to point something out. There’s a reason that people are protesting the rich, and it’s not because they are rich. No one is protesting Bill and Melinda Gates or Richard Branson or Warren Buffet or even Michael Bloomberg (well maybe they were but that had more to do with his actions as mayor rather than his wealth). They’re protesting the Waltons and the Bankers and big business because those are the people who are using their wealth to harm people. The financial crisis ruined the lives of people who had nothing to do with Wall Street. Working conditions exist in the United States and in US owned companies abroad that should not exist anywhere on Earth, much less in a country prides itself on American Exceptionalism. The judgement isn’t on the circumstance of happening to be wealthy but on how that wealth was accumulated and then what was done with it afterwards.

Money probably does bring unique challenges to family dynamics and social interactions, but the idea that the wealthy are unfairly judged is absurd. And like Adam said, there’s a very easy solution to fix the perception of being an evil rich person. GIVE YOUR MONEY AWAY! Give it to the poor, to homeless shelters and food banks, give it to schools and libraries, parks, museums, animal shelters, medical research, and abortion funds! There’s a lot of people who need it, and it will soothe some of that guilt and the public admiration will make you feel a lot less judged.

Last Sunday, my UU Congregation had a service called “This I Believe” based on the popular NPR series, which Google tells me was actually started by Edward R. Murrow. I was invited to participate and share what being a Unitarian Universalist means to me. Here’s what I said:

People sometimes ask me how Unitarian Universalism is a religion at all. There are no dieties we are required to pray to. And what I say is that it’s a religion because we believe things about how the world should be that past a certain point we cannot prove to be true on a chalkboard, the way one could solve a math equation.

For me, Unitarian Universalism is a moral framework that is both challenging and rewarding. Most faiths have things that they require of members. But being a UU is difficult because we must be the ones who calibrate our consciences to right and wrong and check ourselves against them. Without the specter of eternal hell fire looming over our heads, some see us as a soft and easy denomination. When trying to explain our denomination, many of us have been asked, “Oh, so you can just believe whatever you want?” But as any of us who have contemplated these issues as UUs, this is not the case. Like a college student with newly found freedom might eat junk food every day for every meal, some people who leave traditional religion (and some who are still members of it) fall into narcissism, nihilism and apathy. Unitarian Universalism pushes us away from those things. I’m not saying that we can’t be a bit navel gazey at times, but we are also encouraged to look outwards. We care deeply about and find meaning in so many things and we turn those cares into actions. People in our trademark bright yellow Standing On The Side Of Love shirts can be found doing work for causes that fight poverty and bigotry and protect the environment. And this is the challenge of Unitarian Universalism, to both live our personal lives by our morals and values, and to guide our actions to change the things about the world which are unjust.

I believe that we each have a moral imperative to do good works and to care for each other. I try to make this belief the basis of my actions, but it’s not always easy. Being lazy or judgmental are strong temptations for me, and easy bad habits to fall into, even though I know that if I do, I will only harm myself and others. Unitarian Universalism helps me live out my ideals by making room for many different types of people with a variety of beliefs. I share my denomination with people who may think differently than me on some things, but what I love about Unitarian Universalism is that we share the same values. Our Seven Principles call us to act with honor and to seek justice. And when we can agree on that – and we only need to pay attention to the world around us to see that there are so many who do not, when we can agree to act with honor and seek justice, everything else will fall into place.

Image credit: UUA Chalice by Scott Abbotts

]]>http://www.politicalflavors.com/2015/10/20/this-i-believe/feed/0If You Can’t Explain How You Would Enforce An Abortion Ban, Don’t Propose Onehttp://www.politicalflavors.com/2015/10/19/if-you-cant-explain-how-you-would-enforce-an-abortion-ban-dont-propose-one/
http://www.politicalflavors.com/2015/10/19/if-you-cant-explain-how-you-would-enforce-an-abortion-ban-dont-propose-one/#respondMon, 19 Oct 2015 10:00:04 +0000http://www.politicalflavors.com/?p=3767A while back I wrote about how anti choicers want abortion to be illegal and seem to equate this with abortion not existing. When you press them on how exactly this would work, they have nothing. Recently I engaged with a pro lifer on the comments section of a Patheos blog and I want to repost our conversation to further illustrate this point. Even someone who seems to have compassion for women can’t explain how an abortion ban would stop abortions.

I noticed a woman posting in the comments of this post and I asked her:

Would you please explain what the law should be regarding abortion? I am pro choice, and I am also a policy wonk, and I do not understand how we could make abortion illegal without for example, legislating mandatory regular pregnancy tests and police investigations of miscarriages. I have written about the logistical problems with an abortion ban and I would love to know your thoughts.

She Answered:

So, my political views are somewhat two-fold. There is what we can be doing right now, and there is what we can be doing in other, let’s say, more advanced circumstances. If you want to boil it all down, yes, the end game is that I would like to see a society that bans abortion at any stage in most cases (but not all), but I think that is neither feasible, nor the priority at this point.

For the right now, there is a lot more that can be done to reduce abortions than what a ban would accomplish. The number one reason why women abort is due to financial reasons. As such, I support progressive policies such as a single payer healthcare system, guaranteed paid maternal and paternal leave, living wages, paid time off for family leave. Tangentially, we need to put more money and care into our adoption and foster care system. We need to make it easier for mothers who would not even be thinking abortion if they felt that adoption was actually a viable option – not just some pie in the sky so-called-option. We need to make it easier for parents to adopt, by increasing ranks of social workers who can do background checks on them, and provide post adoption follow up services.

And we need to do a lot better on the preventative side of things. We need a no apologies diversified stance to sex education. If you are an accredited middle or high school, even if you are catholic, you have to teach about sex-ed that includes birth control options and how to use them. We need to push down the cost of things like IUDs and the pill, and for those who want it, sterilization. And we need to make them fabulously easy to get these things. Again, I see progressive policies as heading in that direction.

I’m sure we can agree pretty well on these first steps, but they are important, and I think they are intrinsic to any ban that is going to both reflect and guide a culture that values all stages of human life, thus being more sustainable. If there aren’t many other, easy options for women (and their men), any ban will be received as well as Roe v Wade has – that is, you’ll get your predictable split of public opinion. Black and white policies usually result in outlier horror stories, be them testimonies of people who survived being aborted, or the horror stories of women whose hospital policies resulted in them not providing them with the medically needed abortion they required to survive.

What is the next step? Probably a 20 week ban*. Let me be clear, this does not reflect what I see as the morality of abortion. I don’t see a huge distinction between 5 minutes before birth versus 5 minutes after – I similarly see no distinction between 5 minutes before 20 weeks and 5 minutes after It is still a tragedy. But from a policy stand point, this does two things. It gets us used to the idea of abortion bans without completely cutting off the option. At that point, women will have known they’ve been pregnant for at least a couple of weeks, so they still have an opportunity to have an abortion at that point. Again, this is a stepping stone. (I’m a big fan of adaptive management as well. Policy doesn’t do adaptive management very well, which is why doing things in steps like this is needed. Implement less strict policy, check out your results, and the next round, you can make adjustments to address the issues of the last round)

*Two caveats to this. First, that while I see the time frame for abortion as being slowly constricted as society finds other ways to avoid or deal with unwanted pregnancy, life of the mother is not up for grabs. A rape exemption, due to the mental self-defense that an abortion could provide a victimized woman, is also something that should be set in stone. Second, I’d want to see this legislation being passed with a rider bill that ensures it is not difficult to obtain abortions within the legal limit. This would include things like ensuring that women didn’t have to travel far (perhaps even compelling hospitals that receive state funding to provide such services or stop receiving funding/ setting up a fund for public clinics for such services where there are none). What? You might say, this seems to be an expansion of abortion, not a reduction! But this is part of the end goal. Acknowledging that there will be times when, sad though it may be, a tragedy to that unborn person though it may be, is required medically or psychologically, I do want to make sure that if it must happen, it happens as safely, as easily, and as much without distress as possible – as I feel about any medical procedure. This will, I think, help the pro-life side of the country come to terms with that idea that sometimes, abortion is the best course. They’ll be seeing a reduction of abortions, particularly later term abortions, and see this as progress on their end too. Eventually, you’d get to a full on ban, and when that happens, you won’t accidentally have a Savita because the infrastructure is there and hospitals will know that not providing services could mean the end of their tenure.

As far as the nuts and bolts go, I don’t see any need to be monitoring women’s fertility. We’re banning abortions, not banning women not being pregnant. And I don’t see prosecuting a woman as effective policy. We don’t assume there has been a murder unless there is evidence that there has been a murder. We don’t go checking in on people, invading their houses to look for dead bodies. Why would we assume there has been an abortion without evidence that there has been an abortion? Additionally, it won’t be effective at enacting a cultural shift to one that values people at any stage if we’ve got some police state going on. In the environmental world, I’ve seen that for policy, the more moving parts, generally, the harder it is to keep track, and the point of service, in this regard, is not the woman, but the abortionist.

So, be it stage one, all the way through to a full ban, how would women who required a medically needed abortion get one? Or who were victims of rape? Let’s keep it to one vector. Doctors can become certified (perhaps a special kind of certification probably following coursework in ethics, as well as what they’ve probably already studied at that point in gynecology, perhaps psychology, etc, that maybe they need to take refresher courses on every couple of years) to offer a legal medical opinion. Any hospital or clinic that offers abortion services has to have at least one of these housed, and they are not paid by the abortion provider, but by a separate fund set up by the gvt. Alternatively, your GP could have this certification if they went through the courses. Maybe you’d require a signature, like a woman goes to her GP complaining of something, GP checks it out, says, this pregnancy has a huge potential of killing you, I prescribe an abortion, you take that prescription note to the clinic or get the in-house certified doctor to examine and check. Of course legal language would have to be included such that a doctor can sign off on an abortion post procedure when needed. Essentially you’d be getting this doctor to not only say after the fact that an abortion was needed, but that timing did not allow for the written recommendation to be given earlier. They sign and stamp that. You might have, as you do with the USDA or EPA, rare, unannounced governmental check-ins, where regulators are checking in at these certified doctor’s offices, going over identity redacted files to gauge whether or not the certified abortion prescriber was generally prescribing abortions for medically needed situations. As far as a rape exemption would play out, I’d see a situation where I wouldn’t want to impose that a woman actually have a successful court case that she was raped. But she would need to sign something to the effect that she was. This would get the certified doctor to sign off, and the abortionist could do their thing. Abortionists who performed abortions without the prescription would be the ones who would be prosecuted for at minimum, malpractice, at most, potentially manslaughter.

What is the downside of this? Well, let’s be honest, there is the huge potential for corruption. Women can feasibly walk in and say, I was raped, abortion pleaase! or doctors could be bought off to say, you are dying, get yourself an abortion! I think that is just something that is unavoidable. We have corruption in existing laws, police officers who murder and never see a courtroom, bribery for insider trading, or polluting companies that covertly dump waste into the river. That doesn’t change the fact that these laws have changed attitudes overall. Thanks to the clean air act, yes, coal companies still pollute, sometimes illegally, but less do. You can see LA now.

Furthermore, I would want to err on the side of keeping women safe. As I said in another post, not one case of a woman dying because she was refused a medically needed abortion is acceptable.

Culture shapes policy shapes culture which shapes policy which shapes culture. So I don’t think we’ll get to a ban until the fear factor of pregnancy and birth go down significantly, but a ban following the policies that address financial struggles, and is flexible enough to account to medical and psychological needs will result in a populace that has fewer motivations to skirt the law.

I said:

I don’t see how your suggestions are radically different from current laws. I agree with you that we need to do more to prevent unwanted pregnancies. We should increase access to education, contraception and jobs. Great!

13 states already have 20 week abortion bans. Over 98% of abortions happen before 20 weeks and most happen in the first 12 weeks. So these laws are mostly just rhetoric – but for the people they do impact, they are hellish. Abortions performed at or after 20 weeks are performed either because of severe fetal abnormalities or serious risks to the mother’s health. Given that your policy allows for doctors to grant exceptions in these cases my first question for you is – what would your policy change about the current state of affairs? Because I don’t see it changing anything.

From a policy perspective, allowing someone to merely sign a piece of paper alleging they were raped to get an abortion is merciful and compassionate to rape victims. But given that women who need abortions were willing to do much worse when abortions were illegal, like pay exorbitant prices, travel hundreds of miles, and put their lives at risk by going to disreputable quacks, lying on a piece of paper no one but you and your doctor will see seems like a walk in the park. So my second question is – given that your policy makes abortions easier to get than they were before Roe vs Wade, why and how do you expect it to reduce abortions in any significant way?

You said, “Abortionists who performed abortions without the prescription would be the ones who would be prosecuted for at minimum, malpractice, at most, potentially manslaughter.” Kelly Renee Gissendaner was convicted of murder and executed by the state of Georgia last week for conspiring with her lover to kill her husband. Her lover was the one who stabbed her husband to death. Richard Glossip is on death row in Oklahoma for allegedly paying someone to kill his boss. If people can be sentenced to death for conspiring to kill someone or to pay a hitman to do so, why should abortion be any different, if in your words, “it’s the fact that we are talking about the bodily autonomy of two individuals that makes this issue so difficult. It’s extremely important. However, I do not find bodily autonomy compelling enough to inflict mortal damage against another carte blanche.” My third question for you is, how is a woman who goes to a doctor and requests an abortion different from a person who hires a hitman to kill their spouse or boss? Perhaps we agree that neither crime deserves the death penalty. But I think that abortion should be legal because a fetus is not a person and that hiring a hitman should be illegal. Why would you separate the two crimes if you believe a fetus has bodily autonomy?

You said “I don’t see any need to be monitoring women’s fertility. We’re banning abortions, not banning women not being pregnant. And I don’t see prosecuting a woman as effective policy. We don’t assume there has been a murder unless there is evidence that there has been a murder.” When a woman has a miscarriage in countries where abortion is illegal, that is taken as evidence that she may have had an abortion. My fourth question is. If you don’t think that late term miscarriages should be investigated as possible abortions under your 20 week ban, how else would it be enforced? If doctors and hospitals are not required to report “suspicious” miscarriages, how would people who performed illegal abortions be punished?

My fifth question is, where would the criteria for deciding who gets to have an abortion at 20 weeks (or earlier if your successive bans are enacted) come from? You personally? The American Life League? A private organization or a public rulemaking body? For example would these regulations be made available on the Federal Register for public comment? How would these exceptions be determined?

And my sixth question is let’s say that you enact the 20 week ban, when do you take the next step, what is it, and how will you know it’s time to do so?

She replied:

1) Given that your policy allows for doctors to grant exceptions in these cases my first question for you is – what would your policy change about the current state of affairs? Because I don’t see it changing anything.

It wouldn’t change anything as far as abortion numbers go in the first round. But in order for us to get past this schizophrenic personality disorder, attempts to accomplish an all or nothing scenario depending on which side of the fence you sit, it’s a needed first step in my scenario. Pro-lifers need to convince pro-choicers that they really do care about women, by making it easier for women who medically need abortions to get them, and pro-choicers need to convince pro-lifers that they do care about the unborn too (I know on these blogs, people might truly not give a whit about the fetus, but in my experience – and the vast majority of my friends are pro-choice – that isn’t the case at all. They do care about the unborn. Very much so. From pre-natal health too emotional attachments, they see the question of abortion as a really difficult one, just one where ultimately they are afraid for women to be caught in difficult situations they have no recourse out of. My hypothesis is that this is the more mainstream pro-choice position). Again, we need to build that bridge, because otherwise it continues as a political shouting match where we get nothing done (and that includes making sure that women who really do need medical service, like your hypothetical woman in the middle of Oklahoma who needs a medical abortion, can get it easily, and as safely as possible.)

2) So my second question is – given that your policy makes abortions easier to get than they were before Roe vs Wade, why and how do you expect it to reduce abortions in any significant way?

Most of this is answered in the prior question, but I did want to touch on one thing. You mentioned that women were willing to pay a lot more pre RvW for abortions. But again, policy timing, and policy context matters for how any given policy is going to impact people. If people pushed through the 15th amendment pre-civil war, do you think this would have had much of an impact on the election process, perhaps, but not likely in the intended way. Slave owners might have compelled their slaves to vote the way they wanted, or maybe prevented them from voting in the first place. But the civil war happened, slaves were free, and suddenly the 15th amendment becomes relevant and useful towards giving blacks a voice that was their own. (Of course, there was still suppression, and struggle, but not being owned by others made it possible to exercise their 15th amendment rights marginally, as opposed to not at all.)
I hypothesize that in a society where financial supports are there, where social structures exist to support both mother and pre-nate, where medical infrastructure exists so no pregnant woman has to say, I better abort now because if I don’t, and weeks down the line there is a problem, I won’t be able to get an abortion to live, when the desperation involved in a lot of abortions is gone, there is less of an incentive to to even want to get an abortion to begin with. In my experience, policy can really only deal with the aggregate. It can’t hope to zoom down to the individual. A person would still have to sign that they were raped, and it stays in that medical record – though due too privacy laws, released only when the patient agrees. That’s a pretty big deal to lie about something like that. I’m sure someone can do it without a problem, but not most people. Like I said, I am sure there will be cheaters, as there is with any policy. They will be in the minority (is my hypothesis).

3) My third question for you is, how is a woman who goes to a doctor and requests an abortion different from a person who hires a hitman to kill their spouse or boss? But I think that abortion should be legal because a fetus is not a person and that hiring a hitman should be illegal. Why would you separate the two crimes if you believe a fetus has bodily autonomy?

Because in no scenario is there a “hitman for health”. There aren’t legally sanctioned times when a person can go out and hire a hitman to kill somebody. Obviously in the case of an abortion, under my hypothesized policy, there is just such a case.
The addition of such ambiguity means that there is the potential for it being applied really poorly. A woman who had her doctor tell her that she is eligible for a medically justified abortion, but somewhere along the line, the certification doesn’t get communicated when she gets it, shouldn’t be punished for bureaucracy.
As I said before, the more vectors, the more likely your policy is going to produce unpredictable results. It is more efficient, more likely to be successful, if you narrow down the point of liability. And since in this hypothetical world, the only people performing abortions or prescribing abortions have been certified one way or another, they stand to bear a real cost – the loss of that certification. It’s less costly to enforce as well, once again, improving the ability of it to be effective.

4) My fourth question is. If you don’t think that late term miscarriages should be investigated as possible abortions under your 20 week ban, how else would it be enforced? If doctors and hospitals are not required to report “suspicious” miscarriages, how would people who performed illegal abortions be punished?

So, firstly, not all countries where abortion is illegal do they enact that police state. Ireland doesn’t. I see no need to follow the model of those who do.
But to answer your question, enforcement comes in part with those unannounced regulator visits. If abortion certified doctors are performing illegal abortions, when the regulator shows up, they are caught, loose their certification, and potentially face extreme jail time. As far as people who are not licensed and are performing illegal abortions, you’d catch them the way you’d catch any criminal doing crimes covertly. How did anyone catch Gosnell? Eyewitness accounts, anonymous tips, and finally a police raid. Was the protection of born-alive infants a bad law because he acted outside of it? I don’t think so. You’re right though, I can see where manslaughter for unliscenced abortionists might not be a significant enough deterrence. Not sure. I have to think on that more.

But to be clear, my goal is extremely reduced abortions, not increased incarceration. Again, going after the bottleneck that is the abortionist, when they act illegally, is more efficient in that regard.

5) My fifth question is, where would the criteria for deciding who gets to have an abortion at 20 weeks (or earlier if your successive bans are enacted) come from? You personally? The American Life League? A private organization or a public rulemaking body? For example would these regulations be made available on the Federal Register for public comment? How would these exceptions be determined?

Doctor. When the doctor writes down her/his prescription, it’s not just a signature. It’s a detailed report on why and how, in their professional opinion, they believe the pregnancy of a woman is life threatening. You could potentially have a group of gynecological physicians make up a body that codifies some general categorical circumstances that doctors can classify their reasoning under, or even stricter guidelines than that, like Registered Professional Foresters do for the Forest Practice Act in California, but with even more strength to the doctors. That wouldn’t be a bad idea, particularly if you got a healthy mix of medical perspectives relating to abortion. The point is though, keep politicians out of it.

6) And my sixth question is let’s say that you enact the 20 week ban, when do you take the next step, what is it, and how will you know it’s time to do so?

Good question, and the hardest one (not that the others didn’t require thought!). I am not sure of the answer. Honestly, I’m a fairly optimistic person, but in this regard, I am quite pessimistic that we are even going to get to this point in my lifetime. As I said before, the GOP’s conservatism has been the #1 worst thing to happen to the pro-life movement. Though I argue with other pro-lifers when I can that pro-life and conservatism cannot be politically synonymous to succeed, I don’t think it is going to change any time soon. The GOP needs to explode or something.
Knowing what I do about the lethargy of policy making (unless it is an in-your-face issue or emergency, it seems really hard to get on the agenda) Given that fact, if this policy were able to be enacted, you’d probably have to write the timeline into the bill, even if you had release values to extend time periods when needed. From a purely non-policy, cultural standpoint, I think you go down from the 20 week ban at the point where you see abortion numbers plateau down at their lowest level. As I’ve said in other posts, the idea is that culture needs to change as much as policy, and a final, full ban should mostly be codification of the fact that the culture generally respects life at all stages. But as policy impacts culture, ratcheting down that ban in this way, I hypothesize, helps nurture that value in society. (Not all policy positively impacts cultural mores of course! I am not trying to make that claim. But done right, they can.)

I replied:

You said “pro-choicers need to convince pro-lifers that they do ” care about the unborn too.” This is an odd sentiment. I know you identify as politically liberal and you don’t like the fact that most pro-lifers are politically conservative, but that’s the way it is. And in general liberal policies for better education, healthcare, economic opportunity and environmental preservation ARE better for future generations than conservative policies. I think we both would agree on that. But why do you think pro-choicers should have to talk publicly about how much they love fetuses? What would that accomplish?

You said, “I hypothesize that in a society where financial supports are there, where social structures exist to support both mother and pre-nate, where medical infrastructure exists so no pregnant woman has to say, I better abort now because if I don’t, and weeks down the line there is a problem, I won’t be able to get an abortion to live, when the desperation involved in a lot of abortions is gone, there is less of an incentive to to even want to get an abortion to begin with.” So you are mostly right in that countries with better sex ed and healthcare have lower abortion rates, but that has nothing to do with the “incentive to even want to get an abortion.” That is because in those countries there are fewer unwanted pregnancies to abort in the first place. Which I think we would both agree is a great goal! However, I am confused by what you mean by “incentive to get an abortion.” Can you explain what incentives you think exist that encourage women to get abortions? Because from the evidence I’ve seen, women don’t get abortions because they think there is a reward involved, they do it because they are pregnant when they do not want to be.The Guttmacher institute studies abortion in the United States and in 2014 they reported that women gave the following reasons for getting an abortion (they were allowed to select more than one.)

Cannot afford a baby now 73%

A baby would interfere with school/employment/ability to care for dependents 69%

Would be a single parent/having relationship problems 48%

Am finished with childbearing 38%

Having a better social safety net is great. But it’s not going to stop young women from wanting to finish their educations before having kids, or remove other responsibilities from people who have them or fix broken relationships or make someone want another child when they feel they are too old.

Going back to the hitman example, under your proposed policy, abortion would be legal until 20 weeks. Going back to the previously cited Guttmacher presentation, 99% of abortions occur before 20 weeks. That’s a lot of hitmen being hired without health exemptions, don’t you think?

If they don’t arrest women for miscarriages in Ireland, that’s great for human rights. But it’s bad policy. To explain why, let’s look at a neighboring country – Northern Ireland. There they have a law similar to the one you propose. Abortion is only legal when the mother’s life is at risk. . Women frequently travel to other countries to get abortions. The law serves to make abortion more difficult but it doesn’t stop or reduce abortions.

You said, “enforcement comes in part with those unannounced regulator visits.” That sound great but where would the funding for this infrastructure come from? The scope of what you are proposing is quite large. You said, “Any hospital or clinic that offers abortion services has to have at least one of these housed, and they are not paid by the abortion provider, but by a separate fund set up by the gvt.” But since any abortions performed after 20 weeks must be prescribed by one of these certified doctors, I would argue that all hospitals, walk in clinics and OBYGN practices have to have a certified person on staff. Because when you need an abortion to save your life it’s because bad things are happening very quickly. You said that “Of course legal language would have to be included such that a doctor can sign off on an abortion post procedure when needed. Essentially you’d be getting this doctor to not only say after the fact that an abortion was needed, but that timing did not allow for the written recommendation to be given earlier.” How would this work though? I do know a little bit about third party verification and the idea that a professional that has their career and the threat of manslaughter charges hanging over her head would verify a procedure they were not present for is ludicrous. You would need to have people on staff at all times.

In 2008 there were 1,793 abortion providers in the United States. However since then many have been forced to close because of Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers (TRAP laws). In 2013 there were 5,686 hospitals in the USA. According to the US Census in 2010, there were 33,624 OBGYNs in the US. So how many locations is that that need to be inspected? Somewhere between 1,700 and 41,000. Who would conduct and pay for these trainings? How often are these inspections? I know they are unannounced, but how often should they be expected? Once a year? Even if we are only inspecting current abortion clinics – let’s say 1800. That’s 1800 new government bureaucrats PLUS inspectors to check up on them. That is a huge. If you wanted any real oversight the inspector would have to be onsite for a few days at least plus travel time. So 3600 working days. For every clinic to get one inspection per year. If you propose a 5 day work week with 2 weeks vacation and 10 holidays, that’s a 240 day working year. So allowing for zero travel time, you need 15 employees who are willing to travel constantly for once a year checks. 30 is more reasonable given travel demands, allowing time for paperwork. If you want twice a year checks – 60 people, and so on. To truly inspect all hospitals and OBGYN’s you’d need a staff of tens of thousands more onsite people AND 630 people for once a year checks, 1260 for twice a year checks and so on. In addition to the inspectors you need support staff, HR, IT, office space, computers, and so on. Where does this money come from?

You said the guidelines would come from “a group of gynecological physicians.” But what if the doctors don’t want these restrictions? The American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists said in 2014,

Sure, there are some pro life OBGYNs but they are in the minority. If they are the only ones on the committee that sets the standard, that is an incredibly political move. If the sample is representative, you won’t get the standard you want. So how would this work?

She never answered. I’m assuming she simply got tired of the exchange. I really like talking to pro lifers about how they think their policies will work because I get the impression they really don’t know. And if I can make them see that, then maybe they will stop proposing them.

]]>http://www.politicalflavors.com/2015/10/19/if-you-cant-explain-how-you-would-enforce-an-abortion-ban-dont-propose-one/feed/0The Red Pill is an appeal to forcehttp://www.politicalflavors.com/2015/10/16/the-red-pill-is-an-appeal-to-force/
http://www.politicalflavors.com/2015/10/16/the-red-pill-is-an-appeal-to-force/#commentsFri, 16 Oct 2015 10:00:44 +0000http://www.politicalflavors.com/?p=3668I have become fond of saying that antifeminism is an appeal to force. Many of the arguments that antifeminists make come down to the idea that because men are physically stronger than women that makes them somehow better people or smarter than women. They assign moral value to men’s size and strength. Red Pilers particular are fond of this argument.

Men have the ability to control women with force and violence. Women should always remember that.

For all of their bluster about how men are more logical and reasonable than women Red Pillers fall victim to a classic logical fallacy. An appeal to force is not an argument, it’s just a threat of violence. Should violence be how we decide what is true in science and mathematics as well as gender relations?

What is astounding about this argument is that some men seem to think that is new and original. I have said this previously, but women do not ever forget that they are smaller and weaker than men. This does not mean that they are right, however. We do not choose leaders via boxing matches and human beings as a whole are getting less violent over time. This is why The Red Pill is a reactionary movement. It seeks to put us back into a more primitive and violent time. Antifeminists are so fond of reminding women how many great accomplishments in art, science and technology were achieved by men. However in openly rhapsodizing about a time when men could beat and rape women with impunity and even social approval, they are seeking to go back to a time before those accomplishments existed.

]]>http://www.politicalflavors.com/2015/10/15/feminist-coffee-hour-episode-one-this-is-why-i-have-trust-issues/feed/0Unpacking the Murray/Singas domestic abuse scandal.http://www.politicalflavors.com/2015/10/14/unpacking-the-murraysingas-domestic-abuse-scandal/
http://www.politicalflavors.com/2015/10/14/unpacking-the-murraysingas-domestic-abuse-scandal/#respondWed, 14 Oct 2015 18:26:00 +0000http://www.politicalflavors.com/?p=3830On Long Island this fall, the Nassau County District Attorney’s race is heating up. Current Nassau County prosecutor Madeline Singas is facing off against Town of Hempstead Supervisor Kate Murray. Murray is claiming Singas’ failure to fire a co-worker in a messy divorce case means she is unfit for office. A lot of the reporting about this has come from the New York Post, but I want to present a summary that is less focused on the lurid details and more about the facts of what happened.

Here’s what we know:

1. Jeffrey Stein, a Democrat and the Nassau County DA’s chief administrative officer used to be married to Carole Mundy.

Everything about this is terrible. There may be a domestic abuser in the Nassau County DA’s office and the Post is using the story as clickbait focusing on the details of specific sex acts rather than whether or not they were consensual. Kate Murray is using the suffering of victims of intimate partner violence for her own political advantage. Dave Mejias handles the civil side of domestic abuse cases when he may be a perpetrator himself. Madeline Singas, like all prosecutors is in a difficult spot. She wants to advocate for victims but has limited resources with which to do so. If Kate Murray really wants to make domestic violence her issue, she should tell us what she plans to do about it, and what solutions and resources will she offer to victims, rather than exploiting other people’s pain to score points.

]]>http://www.politicalflavors.com/2015/10/14/unpacking-the-murraysingas-domestic-abuse-scandal/feed/0Announcing: The Feminist Coffee Hour Podcast!http://www.politicalflavors.com/2015/10/12/announcing-the-feminist-coffee-hour-podcast/
http://www.politicalflavors.com/2015/10/12/announcing-the-feminist-coffee-hour-podcast/#respondMon, 12 Oct 2015 10:00:00 +0000http://www.politicalflavors.com/?p=3676In January 2016, Political Flavors will be five years old. And while the blog part of the site will continue hopefully for a very long time, I am proud to announce that Political Flavors will also be home to a new project – The Feminist Coffee Hour Podcast.

My friend Karen and I will be hosting a show that we hope will have a similar tone as this blog. We will discuss pop culture, politics and current events from a feminist perspective. Episodes will be posted on the blog and also on the podcast website which will be politicalflavors.com/podcast. We plan to have episodes hosted on iTunes very soon. We have many big ideas and high hopes for this endeavor including insightful guests and collaborations with other podcasters.

Beginning this project has been a very exciting time for me. I’m a fan of the medium and this show is truly a labor of love. I have been listening to podcasts since Air America archives were made available when the radio network launched in 2004. Even before that I always loved radio. Growing up I appreciated baseball sportscasting almost as much as the sport itself. As a kid, John Sterling and Michel Kay might as well have been Don Mattingly and Wade Boggs. In junior high school I was obsessed with morning zoo radio shows. (There’s no accounting for taste when you are 12.) And then at 13 I discovered late night radio talk shows, which may have stunted my growth with the hours of sleep I lost. Podcasts got me through homesickness in grad school and entertain me during my commute and distract me at the gym today. They’re one of my favorite things.

Karen and I have been talking about feminism and other topics that we are passionate about since we met in 2012. I have been playing around with the idea of starting a podcast for years, and anytime I meet anyone interesting I ask them to write a guest post for the blog. One day last month after I made yet another request for her to write about a cool idea she had, Karen said “Instead of a guest post, let’s do a podcast.” And I said “Yes!” And thus, Feminist Coffee Hour was born.

]]>http://www.politicalflavors.com/2015/10/12/announcing-the-feminist-coffee-hour-podcast/feed/0The Ethics of Origins Cosmetics – Organic Doesn’t Mean Good Labor Practiceshttp://www.politicalflavors.com/2015/09/02/origins-child-labo/
http://www.politicalflavors.com/2015/09/02/origins-child-labo/#commentsWed, 02 Sep 2015 16:07:48 +0000http://www.politicalflavors.com/?p=3646There’s and article in Pacific Standard about the child abuse perpetuated by a Christian cult called “The Twelve Tribes.” The article asks how far the First Amendment goes – can religious freedom really protect the harming of children? It’s a disturbing but important article and you should read the whole thing.

Something that jumped out at me though was this paragraph about how the children in this cult were often taken out of school and made to work at businesses.

The Jones children were put to work at an early age. For several weeks when she was seven, for example, Shuah boarded a 15-passenger van at dawn with other grade-schoolers and drove to the Tribes’ Common Sense factory in Rutland, an hour away. One of the Tribes’ biggest clients was Estee Lauder, which contracted the group to make its popular Origins salt scrub. Shuah spent 10 hours a day labeling and packaging the scrub and other products. At a certain point, she told me, the elders passed out sleeping bags so the kids could sleep on the factory floor. “We’d take little breaks and run around and play and get spanked for it,” recalled Alicia Gonyaw, who worked at the factory when she was 12. “We weren’t allowed to be kids.”

I was shocked. I’ve heard that there is child labor and sweat shops in the United States, but it’s something I don’t like to think about. It’s something that happens in other places. And I felt guilty! I love Origins products and I have reviewed them glowingly on this blog. But my mistake was in assuming that because a product is organic, it’s produced in accordance with fair labor standards too. And as I have found, that is just not the case.

But makeup isn’t like a blueberry or an apple. It must be processed, and there are ingredients that aren’t plant based. Mineral ingredients must be mined, and there are numerous abuses in the mining of minerals for makeup.

A report by campaign group DanWatch said child labour is being used in the eastern states of Jharkhand and Bihar to extract mica, which is then added to the make-up produced by at least 12 multinational companies.

At least 5,000 children may be producing mica – used to add glitter to natural cosmetics – which is bought by intermediaries and then exported to high-profile international customers such as L’Oreal and Estee Lauder.

Estee Lauder is the parent company of Origins.

I tweeted at Origins hoping for a response yesterday – Shuah’s story happened many years ago and perhaps they have new safeguards in place. But I have received no response except for some conversation with Stacy Malkin from SafeCosmetics.org.

Knowing what I know now, though, a response from Origins stating that they don’t or won’t use that specific factory anymore isn’t enough. We need more transparency about how the ingredients in our makeup are mined, not just how they are farmed. The jewelry industry has the Kimberly Process and the No Dirty Gold campaign. Cosmetics companies need to get on board.

For me, makeup is something fun I like to use on weekends or special occasions. No matter how a person chooses to wear it, it’s production should not involve the endangerment or exploitation of children or adult workers.

]]>http://www.politicalflavors.com/2015/09/02/origins-child-labo/feed/3Pope Francis’ Holy Year Abortion Forgiveness – You Have To Say Sorry Firsthttp://www.politicalflavors.com/2015/09/01/pope-francis-holy-year-abortion-forgiveness-you-have-to-say-sorry-first/
http://www.politicalflavors.com/2015/09/01/pope-francis-holy-year-abortion-forgiveness-you-have-to-say-sorry-first/#respondTue, 01 Sep 2015 17:57:37 +0000http://www.politicalflavors.com/?p=3641The Catholic Church teaches that abortion is a grave sin which is punishable by immediate excommunication.

First, there’s some patronizing stuff about how women who get abortions don’t know what they are doing and only have a “superficial awareness” of it. He acknowledges that the reasons a person may seek an abortion are powerful pressures, but says nothing of what can be done to alleviate those pressures. Yes, Pope Francis has talked a lot about poverty, but he really should have linked the two issues right here if he wants to maintain credibility.

More importantly, the media is brushing off the hoop that women who have had abortions must go through to receive forgiveness. They must sincerely be sorry for it and they have to say they are sorry to a priest during confession. This is a big ask when you consider that 99% of women who have had abortions do not regret it. Pope Francis is asking women to apologize for something they are not sorry for. He is asking them to lie to themselves, their priests and to God. For someone who claims to have such compassion for women who have had abortions, that’s a rather manipulative thing to demand.

]]>http://www.politicalflavors.com/2015/09/01/pope-francis-holy-year-abortion-forgiveness-you-have-to-say-sorry-first/feed/0President Obama and Bear Grylls, the next Teddy Roosevelt and John Muir?http://www.politicalflavors.com/2015/08/31/president-obama-and-bear-grylls-the-next-teddy-roosevelt-and-john-muir/
http://www.politicalflavors.com/2015/08/31/president-obama-and-bear-grylls-the-next-teddy-roosevelt-and-john-muir/#commentsMon, 31 Aug 2015 18:23:47 +0000http://www.politicalflavors.com/?p=3633Today’s news that President Obama will be on Running Wild with Bear Grylls has many fans excited for what promises to be fascinating television.

It would be ironic if a genre as problematic as reality television could steer us back on course to a greener planet. But as we have seen with his usage of Buzzfeed and “Between Two Ferns” to encourage young people to sign up for health insurance, President Obama is good at using new media to advance his agenda. And while the new 1560 pageClean Power Plan doesn’t easily lend themselves to a viral video, a camping trip with Bear Grylls certainly does.

I find myself thinking “Fun Home” is a bittersweet graphic novel about a woman growing up as a lesbian and coming to terms with her father’s suicide and that he was a closeted gay man. These Duke kids got off easy!

The first book I had to read in college was Querelle by Jean Genet. I was pretty sheltered 17 year old Catholic kid. And so in my first week at college, it was kind of mind blowing to be handed this piece of French nihilist literature which the internet tells me is about society’s hypocritical attitudes about sex – especially gay sex – and violence. All I remember is a sailor having graphic sex with a man he didn’t particularly like. I was wondering why he had to make it sound so awful – it wasn’t loving or sexy at all. I was very uncomfortable, but it never would have crossed my mind to refuse to read the book or drop the class. And even though I was still very religious, I NEVER would have thought to use my Catholicism as an excuse to not do my assigned reading. I really wanted to be taken seriously so I toughed it out.

I survived and I think I even learned a few things – that old people were lying when they pretended gay people were some new fad, that there were a ton of themes in literature that my high school English class didn’t even touch, and that I didn’t like nihilism.

I think there is an important distinction between images and written words. If the book explored the same themes without sexual images or erotic language, I would have read it. But viewing pictures of sexual acts, regardless of the genders of the people involved, conflict with the inherent sacredness of sex. My beliefs extend to pop culture and even Renaissance art depicting sex.

If comic book drawings of sex compromise your morality and your faith, neither is very strong. He comes off as deeply insecure rather than someone taking a strong ethical stand.

When I was in college, a favorite prank was for people to draw cartoon penises on the chalkboards. (Do people still do that?) This even happened in my Comp Lit class where we were studying Querelle. The instructor rolled her eyes and erased it, letting out a few giggles before she turned back around to face the class. If someone repeats that juvenile prank in one of the classrooms Brian Grasso is scheduled to attend will he wait outside until the board is wiped clean?

]]>http://www.politicalflavors.com/2015/08/26/fun-home/feed/0Building A New Way – Black Lives Matter at UU General Assemblyhttp://www.politicalflavors.com/2015/08/24/building-a-new-way-black-lives-matter-at-uu-general-assembly/
http://www.politicalflavors.com/2015/08/24/building-a-new-way-black-lives-matter-at-uu-general-assembly/#respondMon, 24 Aug 2015 13:31:49 +0000http://www.politicalflavors.com/?p=3627This blog post is modified from a service I co-led at my UU Congregation on August 23, 2015. The theme of the service was “Building A New Way” – the same as this years UU General Assembly. I and others who attended reported back to the congregation on our experiences. Although the events described happened almost two months ago, they still weigh heavily on my mind and my heart.

This past June I attended my second Unitarian Universalist General Assembly. It was a rewarding experience. I got to see Portland, Oregon, a place I had wanted to visit for years. The Rose City charmed me with it’s magnificent gardens, strong coffee, and hipster bohemian vibe.

I proudly carried the banner for my congregation in the banner parade, and I said hello to friends I had not seen in years.

I watched UUA President Peter Morales call up all of the same sex couples in attendance to the stage to celebrate the Supreme Court ruling which struck down bans on same sex marriage throughout our country. People sang and danced with joy.

Our statement on Immigration was approved in 90 seconds. Climate change? Six minutes.
But the General Assembly of the Unitarian Universalist Association took one hour and forty five minutes to affirm that Black Lives Matter.

The main controversy was over the portion of the action which stated that it “encourages member congregations and all Unitarian Universalists to work toward police reform and prison abolition.”

Prison abolition can sound like a scary concept if you’ve never heard of it. Perhaps it conjures visions of the horror film “The Purge” where society suspends all laws for 24 hours. Murderers and rapists would rampage about destroying society. That’s not what prison abolition is.

I like to say that my motto is “Word have meanings, context matters.” And context in this case is everything.

When I returned home, I educated myself further – I read “Are Prisons Obsolete?” and “Abolition Democracy” by Angela Davis. And what I begun to understand is that the prison abolition movement is about moving away from a punitive system which seeks to punish those who have done wrong to a rehabilitative, restorative system where the outcomes look more like justice than vengeance.

During the debate at General Assembly, Elandra Williams, a Black Lives Matter activist from Tennessee spoke powerfully when she said “Jails aren’t a solution. If you pass something weak, you’ve passed nothing at all. If you pass it to make yourself feel good, you didn’t do it. It means nothing. Fight for what we asked for, not for what you want.”

Another speaker said “To be good allies, we should not try to lead when we ought to follow.” And that was the heart of the matter. Were we making a statement of support and solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement? Or were we telling the Black Lives matter movement what we wanted them to do?

The Youth Caucus started to tell people that if the prison abolition language was removed, they would be withdrawing the AIW altogether.

There were votes and recounts and procedural mayhem. The tension in the room was palpable. Being a religious organization, there were breaks so that people might cool down. Moments of silence, prayers for guidance. Someone ran out to find Matt Meyer. He took the stage and led us all in meditative singing.

Eventually, eventually, there was a compromise. Through some parliamentary jujitsu we left in the words “prison abolition” and added after them in parenthesis “which seeks to replace the current prison system with a system that is more just and equitable.”

The motion passed, and I know I was not the only one who felt exhausted.

This month’s edition of UU World, contains an article “Five ways UUs can support the black lives matter movement” by Kenny Wiley. He writes “It is imperative, whatever our level of education or our privileges, that none of us looks away. If we are to live up to our First Principle, and truly honor the inherent worth and dignity of every person, then we must proclaim, with words and deeds, that black lives matter.”

]]>http://www.politicalflavors.com/2015/08/24/building-a-new-way-black-lives-matter-at-uu-general-assembly/feed/0Mayor DeBlasio’s War on Boobs Misfireshttp://www.politicalflavors.com/2015/08/21/mayor-deblasios-war-on-boobs-misfires/
http://www.politicalflavors.com/2015/08/21/mayor-deblasios-war-on-boobs-misfires/#respondFri, 21 Aug 2015 14:37:26 +0000http://www.politicalflavors.com/?p=3619I voted for Bill DeBlasio. In general, I think he’s doing a good job. But this week he’s gone off the rails a bit. In Times Square, there are women who call themselves “desnudas” (Spanish for naked) who wear body paint and thongs. They take pictures with tourists and ask for tips. Apparently this is a crisis. Because tourists are SHOCKED and WHAT ABOUT THE CHILDREN?

But since it’s legal to be topless in New York, and it’s legal to panhandle, it seems like there’s nothing illegal about what is going on here.

So complex is the issue that Mr. de Blasio, who has angrily vowed to put a stop to the practice, suggested on Thursday that one option would be to simply tear out the pedestrian plazas where the women operate.

The mayor met this week for almost three hours with police and city officials on how to restrict the women’s activities before deciding more study was needed, his aides said. On Thursday, he announced that he had formed a task force of city officials, local politicians and business leaders and gave it until Oct. 1 to come up with strategies.

There is something shady going on in Times Square, and it’s not the presence of breasts. It’s wage theft, tax evasion and violation of labor laws. According to this Daily News Article, the desnudas are not just a bunch of women doing this for fun and profit, but seem to be employees of a business. They work 12 hour days with no breaks, and share tips with their painters, managers and a boss. According to the article that leaves them with an average of $90 a day. That’s a mere $7.50 an hour – which is $1.25 below the minimum wage in New York City. And I doubt their boss is making sure that taxes and social security are being withheld.

As with the Lingerie Football League we should not be distracted by the spectacle of sex or the cheap moral outrage. It’s a ridiculous position to seem so upset by nudity. And I must point out the striking discordance that we live in a culture where women’s bodies are decorative sex objects but we are outraged when they attempt to make money from that objectification.

Where we should be focused is on the rights of these women. They, like millions of people in this country who work “off the books” in restaurants and other businesses due to immigration status or the inability to find work elsewhere, are being exploited by their employers. If Mayor DeBlasio really wanted to clean up this city he could start by enforcing our labor laws. Because if all he does is make it impossible for the desnudas to work in Times Square, who is going to care if they wind up at jobs working even longer hours for less money but wearing more clothing?

]]>http://www.politicalflavors.com/2015/08/21/mayor-deblasios-war-on-boobs-misfires/feed/0Tim Hunt’s apology reveals he still has a problem with women.http://www.politicalflavors.com/2015/06/13/tim-hunt/
http://www.politicalflavors.com/2015/06/13/tim-hunt/#commentsSat, 13 Jun 2015 21:19:35 +0000http://www.politicalflavors.com/?p=3609By now you have probably heard about Nobel laureate Tim Hunt’s ridiculous comments about women scientists:

“Three things happen when [girls] are in the lab: you fall in love with them, they fall in love with you, and when you criticise them they cry.”

Having worked as a research assistant in college and graduate school and never once crying over any constructive criticism offered by my supervising professors, I was rolling my eyes pretty hard. Besides what work environment doesn’t have some degree interpersonal conflict? Learning to work effectively with different people and managing romantic entanglements is just part of life – isn’t it?

Although I think his remarks are quite stupid, at first I wasn’t sure as to whether they were worth being fired over. But then I read his (second) apology, which begins (emphasis added):

I accept that my attempts at a self-deprecating joke were ill-judged and not in the least bit funny…

So his comments were meant to be a self depreciating joke? Hunt wasn’t saying that women are bad scientists, just that he has personal problems which render him incapable of working with women. And we should find this inability humorous. Ok then, I’m totally on board with his employment being terminated. He has stated that he cannot work with women, thus University College of London has an obligation to their women employees to fire him.

The second season of Voyager is considered by many fans to be the weakest, and I’m not sure if I agree. But even if that’s true, I did notice that there was a strong theme of Reproductive Justice underscoring a few of the episodes.

It starts with Elogium. In this episode, the ship flies into the mating ground of some giant space slugs and this throws Kes into heat, many years before she expected to have to decide whether or not to have a child. Trekkie Feminist has a great review of the episode, but what stood out to me were that:

Janeway stated plainly that she will not institute a blanket ban on “fraternization.” If the crew wants to hook up, that’s their business

Janeway acknowledges that some members of her crew may have children. But again she’s not going to encourage this or discourage it. She doesn’t think this is any of her business.

Kes considers whether or not to have a child and concludes that just because she can, doesn’t mean that she should.

At the end of the episode we find out that Ensign Wildman is pregnant. She and her husband were trying to conceive before Voyager left the Alpha Quadrant and she has just confirmed it now. They’ve been lost in space for months, but the show glosses over this. Perhaps it’s because Wildman’s husband is Ktarian and that species has a much longer gestation period. Or maybe Ktarian sperm can live a lot longer than human sperm in fallopian tubes waiting for the right egg.

When Wildman comes to tell Captain Janeway, the tone is serious:

WILDMAN: I know this isn’t the best place to have a baby, but it’s all I have left of my husband.
JANEWAY: Well, congratulations, Ensign.

At first I wondered why they didn’t seem happier about it. But their serious tone is fitting. Being lost in a hostile area of space 70 light years away from family and a support network is not the best place to have a baby. Gushing and squeeing would not have been appropriate. The show takes this very seriously. Wildman’s baby is wanted and yet arriving under less than ideal circumstances.

In the episode Deadlock, Wildman gives birth, and there is a complication:

EMH: Push!
KES: Don’t forget to breathe, Samantha. Deep regular breaths. That’s it.
EMH: Cervical dilation is at ten point two centimeters. Prostaglandin levels are normal. Push, Ensign.
WILDMAN: You push, damn it! I’m sick of pushing!
EMH: I know you’re fatigued. Try to focus on your breathing. Remember the exercises we did. When you feel a contraction, bear down.
WILDMAN: Oh! Oh, what was that?
EMH: What’s wrong?
WILDMAN: A pain in my abdomen. It’s different. Sharp. Oh, God!
EMH: The baby has shifted position, and its exo-cranial ridges have lodged in the uterine wall. This is a rare complication, but it’s been known to happen in human Ktarian pregnancies.
KES: Can we reposition the baby?
EMH: No. Its spinal column is too fragile. I don’t want to risk nerve damage. If we don’t deliver the baby now, its ridges could perforate the uterus and cause internal bleeding. Kes, prepare for a foetal transport.
EMH: I’ve locked onto the baby’s coordinates. We’re ready to begin. Initiating umbilical separation. Energizing.
EMH: Congratulations, Ensign. It’s a girl.
WILDMAN: Is she all right?
EMH: The transport caused a slight hemocythemic imbalance, but we’ll stabilise her cell membranes with osmotic pressure therapy.

Although there was a risk to the baby (she born with something like decompression sickness) the Doctor and Kes did not think twice about saving Wildman’s life. She was in danger of dying and they saved her. Immediately. Without question.

Finally there is the matter of Seska’s assault on Chakotay. She tells him that while he was being held hostage by the Kazon, she took a sample of his DNA while he was unconscious and impregnated herself with it. When the baby is born she sends a message saying that she and the baby are in danger. This is clearly a trap. Janeway and Chakotay know this. Janeway tells Chakotay that it is his decision whether or not they decide to attempt a rescue. In his review of this episode, Jammer says,

But this is only true if you consider that Janeway’s only objective is military success. It’s not. She frequently places the heath and welfare of her crew, and the existence of other civilizations above their goal of getting home or winning battles. Even though she’s his superior officer, Janeway does not want to stop Chakotay from rescuing his son and having his chance at fatherhood – even though it might put them all at risk. When you include Chakotay’s rights as a parent her calculus makes more sense.

It’s clear that for Captain Janeway, the reproductive rights of her crew are a priority. One more reason why Star Trek is a utopian vision of the future.

]]>http://www.politicalflavors.com/2015/03/09/themes-of-reproductive-justice-in-the-second-season-of-star-trek-voyager/feed/3Seven Seasons Of Questions About Odohttp://www.politicalflavors.com/2015/02/02/questions-about-odo/
http://www.politicalflavors.com/2015/02/02/questions-about-odo/#respondMon, 02 Feb 2015 11:00:01 +0000http://www.politicalflavors.com/?p=3498Adam and I have recently finished watching Star Trek: Deep Space 9. It’s a really good show. Perhaps the best one. As Zack Handlen of the AV Club explains so well, it’s strength is in how it deconstructs the premise and tropes of the two previous series:

Still, what I want to talk about is how mind shatteringly awesome Odo is. Deep Space Nine’s chief of security is a shape shifter in a Bajoran militia uniform. He’s far better at security than Worf ever was, and he makes the most convincing case for an all seeing all knowing police state I’ve ever heard (no, really.) He has Data’s longing for connection, Spock’s vulnerability and Worf’s torn allegiances. But still, there’s so many unanswered questions about what he can do. You could ask similar questions about Q, but he’s used sparingly. Odo is a regular cast member.

Sometimes it seems like Odo had no idea what the answers are to these questions himself!

For your discussion and consideration: the grand list of questions about Odo that Adam and I have been compiling for months:

How does he get energy? Odo doesn’t eat or drink. (Except that one time in “Facets” where he was hosting Curzon’s memories and drank Tranya.) He needs to regenerate, but where does he get the fuel for that process?

How can he change his mass? We see Odo transform into a few small things, and people pick him up with ease. How can this be?

Why don’t O’Brien and Dax and Bashir follow him around asking him questions all day? If generating this list of questions was a fun game as we watched the show, wouldn’t the curiosity be just torture for inquisitive scientists? Perhaps they understand that he doesn’t like being treated as a science experiment but we don’t see them even asking the occasional, respectful question.

Can he see in 360 degrees? There’s no indication that he can do this, but shouldn’t he be able to?

Are all parts of his body equally sensitive to light and/or touch? And if they are…

Does he/can he echolocate? It seems like he should be able do do this too. If not, what does he hear with?

What’s a “morphogenic matrix”? Is it like a neural net?
What does he think with?

How does he understand gender – his own and that of humanoids? Odo takes the form of a Bajoran male because the doctor who studied him was a Bajoran man. If Doctor Mora had been a woman, would Odo had taken a female form? Is there anything about him that’s inherently “male?” Does changeling reproduction require two (or more or fewer) biological sexes?

How does he understand/experience friendship/love/sex etc? Does he have a limbic system? Odo seems to easily assimilate to humanoid concepts of friendship and camaraderie. He appears to approximate heterosexual cisgendered male sexuality. But he also says that changeling relationships within The Great Link are not understandable to humanoids. How is it that he can so easily adapt to our social structures?

Odo seems to equivocate The Link with other changelings with having sex with humanoids. How similar are they really though? Is The Link an erotic experience or just pleasurable and intimate? Does it have anything to do with changeling reproduction? The way he links with himself in Children of Time and with a changeling he barely knows in Chimera is very different from the way he establishes sexual relationships with humanoids.

Can he turn himself into a machine with working parts? If so how complicated? Like maybe he could be a pair of scissors or a pulley but not a power drill or a transporter?

Does Odo have Bajoran citizenship? This is implied but it never really comes up. I think it would be interesting to know how the Bajoran government classifies him.

Can he make himself rain down Sulfur? Or can he turn into any caustic or explosive substance? Could he turn himself into a bomb that explodes and still survive? Alternately, if he was on a ship that was about to explode could he turn himself into some kind of inflammable or shock absorbing material to survive?

Does he have any way of proving his own unique identity? If another shapeshifter was pretending to be him would there be any way to tell the difference? Does he have any kind of tissue with any kind of DNA like substance that he sheds? (Like dead skin cells?)

How does the universal translator work with Odo? Does he have an implant? It makes sense that he can speak Bajoran and Cardassian, but what about other languages?

Does Odo use his bucket on The Defiant? Not as important, but I’m still curious!

Michael:You guys ever think that maybe we think about movies more than the people who made the movies?
Soren: Yeah, like maybe we’re projecting? Yeah I think about that…
Michael: Right, like maybe the guys who wrote Aladdin maybe wouldn’t have if they knew a bunch of assholes were going to sit around tearing all their choices apart?
Katie: Well no matter what you make, some dickhead is going to comment on it.
Dan: I’m going to stop making things forever now, because of comments.